Courage

When Donnie was about to leave for college he decided that he wasn't ready to leave. He told himself that it was just cold feet, and that he’d be ready in the morning.

He went jogging before dusk, when the August heat began to cool down for the night. There was a place a couple miles away that he wanted to see one last time.

He had forgotten how to get there, so he was afraid as he sauntered by the suburban sprawl. Sure, there was the school, the creek, the pond, and the meadow, but after all of that it got hazy. There was the damp justified forest, with the diverging paths that always led somewhere. It was overwhelming and he started to remember why the place was so special.

There were a lot of dark openings and the little carved paths didn’t necessarily have to lead anywhere. It was a maze of fallen branches and exposed roots while all around him 20-foot birches, elms, and maples slowly digested him.

This place would be worth it though, he had decided. Elephant Rock would make sense again. All of those courageous days that it represented so perfectly would be reasonable once more. He could overcome insatiable odds just like on that day years ago.

"Stop here," were Terry's words, and Donnie looked forward at the horizon. He saw canopies never ending, the top of a giant broccoli tree. The leaves bursted into a coalition of friendly green that sparkled perfectly in the breeze. Terry was right about the grove above the branches, it was magnificent.

Because he could never ask his mother why she wouldn't let him walk home from school, just a quarter mile from his own living room. She didn't have to know that he scraped his knee in the middle of an empty forest that day, she really didn't need to know anything anymore.

Terry and Donald rolled ranch dressing down the cliff to see the splatter of white redeem the ordinary. The ketchup bottle that they found in Donald’s basement was used to portray their convictions, crunching a costly spray of red on the chalk of a stranger’s tennis court. To be more endowed than these two misguided teenagers was criminal, so they avenged. Forged hopes and childish idols plagued an elegant in-ground pool now, and them no longer.

There on this rock confining walls disintegrated and freedom abounded. There were no curfews, guardians, or limits, but even so, the mosquitoes were relentless.

Donald decided to get the hell out of there. Searching for the light, he found an opening where the pounded dirt pointed to respite. He exited the forest to Suffolk Road where Elizabeth's house dwarfed him across the perfectly paved street.

He walked towards home taking Bristol Street. When he made it back he started packing, stupidly content with his courage.

The next morning he got on the plane and climbed jagged clouds. He had almost found Elephant Rock one last time.

This is the most personal story of the bunch. It started as a poem that I wrote freshman year of college but I think it's stronger as a flash fiction. It was too long as a poem anyway.

I don't know if there is any more I can say about this one. My past is haunting with lessons I can't seem to learn.

-Dan