October leads you into the woods like a park ranger. He draws your attention to juniper, thrush, laurel and chipmunk. Enthralled, you follow. It gets a little darker, a little cooler. What's green turns olive, gold and brown. He points out salamanders, mushrooms. You kick aside fallen leaves. The path narrows. That's deadly nightshade. There's something with black wings flying fast toward you. You duck. Never mind that, here's witch's snuff.Pretty soon it drizzles. You slow down to avoid the webs and vines. October moves on ahead of you and is soon out of view. The path is now less a path, more a series of choices you have to make. Briar patch, no. Swampy area, no. Chasm, no... It rains. Gets darker. Something canine barks and howls. A flash of lightning, the crack of thunder. Bushes and trees grow arms, the wind waves them around at you. Thorns tear into your flesh. It's getting harder to pull your feet out of the mud. The smell of your sweat and blood catches the wind and carries.
Never get swept up by October.
3 comments:
Ah, the tenth month. That time of year when the shadows lengthen outside as well as in my mind. And I like that. Nothing like a dark portal, is there? Very nice to see October again, and to walk with him through the darlking woods. Here's a bit of what I saw on a drive through South Carolina just before Halloween 1989. It's from the short story "Verdery." " The farms were replaced by small landholdings, most less than twenty acres, and they seemed to have three things in common. An ill-repaired house at a distance of no more than fifty feet from the road, a yard with all manner of rusted junk interspersed with the fluorescent plastic of children's toys, and the occasional sneering redneck on the porch. Usually a skinny white male, unshaven, wearing jeans, a long-sleeve shirt of unknown original color, now grayish white, stoop-stanced, holding a cigarette and looking like he'd just woken up, no matter what time of day it is. And leering at you as you pass by. He only saw you for a second, but it was enough to let him decide that you don't belong here. Whether you drove by in a Jaguar or an old van, the look didn't change. His Daddy probably gave passers-by the same look from the same porch in his day.
It was after the seventh or eighth house like this, that I began to get the feeling that I was entering The October Country. That place where the shadows seem just a bit too deep, and dusk comes much too early. Where you feel uncertain of getting a helping hand if you break down, in fact, you're sure that will bring you to a bad end. The people are stranger, the towns and villages more sinister, the graveyards smaller and more intimate, but far older and more numerous. And though you know you don't belong, and every stare and sideways glance reaffirms this, it's clear that you could stumble through some dark doorway, and unseen hands would lead you to where you'd become, after ceremony and initiation, one of the October People. They might even give you your own porch to stand on. Then you'd know why you leer at outsiders."
Mystery and intrigue, danger and misadventure are all fine. Just as long as you have a safe place to come back to.
Tis the season.
October is also a time when stealthy gardeners harvest their crops in them thar woods. ;)
Ah, Verdery, how one's heart yearns for thee.
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