June 6, 2013
D-Day; I can't help but giggle about the irony.
I suppose if you're reading this, I'm long gone. But I figured I should use today to write everything down, just in case. I want you to know the whole story, the one I didn't know when I first came here.
It all started with a simple walk on Beltane. See, the summer holidays serve two purposes for me—a spiritual re-awakening at every turn of the wheel (you'll have to get used to my Pagan talk), and an excuse to get away from town, even if only for a couple hours. Here in the Bible Belt, most people aren't that considerate toward anything that isn't a Baptist or an oil rig. The former was rather uncomfortable, and as for the latter… let's just say there were days when I wished I could be a piece of machinery, but it never panned out.
Anyway, Beltane. For me, that meant a walk in the woods to welcome the faeries and reconnect with the Earth as she came into bloom. Grass was springing to life, trees had sprouted leaves, and everything was pregnant with the coming summer.
A fair warning: You may not believe me. You may think I was hallucinating, or that I'm just plain lying, but I can assure you I remember it all very clearly.
Around sunset on Beltane, the first night of May, I parked my creaky white truck in the gravelly patch beside the local wilderness reserve. I was still spitting out profanities about the moron who had tailgated me on the road. My worn, black sneakers landed on the gravel with a crunch, and I slammed my truck door shut without much thought. I shoved my keys into my pocket instinctively, and then clicked my flashlight to life. Everything was in working order. Admittedly, I should've taken my cell phone with me instead of leaving it in the driver seat, but let's not focus on that.
The orange light of the sun simmered through the trees, defiant of the coming night. As I strolled into the thick canopy of the foliage, I remember thinking it looked as if the edges of the leaves were being set alight. It was really beautiful; magical, even. Naturally, I had no idea what was to come.
