The Dying Path

pondering where life's path takes us

The Dying Path

          Ted walked silently along the footpath winding through the woods. He had been roaming, in a mood of exploration, had found it.

          Dying, Ted thought, the footpath is dying. There are mats, and mats, of leaves, layers from passing years pressed together,  covering the narrow, failing trail. If the path were not dying, it would be of soil only, not unpressed leaves. There are the shoots too, the undisturbed plants that are working their way up in the center of the path. If the path were regularly used, the young plants would have been crushed down, snapped off from their roots.

          The path was so soothing, too. Maples, cottonwoods, oaks, all loomed overhead in a dome patched enough to let the companion-like sunlight in; patched enough to throw out areas of shade to cool a person. Yet it was abandoned.

          There were young trees also, filling in any barrenness the spacing of the aged towers of boughs, limbs, and leaves formed. And what spacing the young trees left, the pleasing, contrasting weeds filled.

          Birds were there too. A misguided, zebra-backed woodpecker hacking away at a tree thriving with life. A mourning dove flying up from the ground. And others too, as well as all of the owners of the unidentifiable but sweetly melodious voices he had heard from perches too distant to be seen. Yet, it was abandoned.

          And animals. A squirrel that had been high in a cottonwood. A fleeting glimpse of a rabbit bounding off, the fluffy tail bobbing. A scurrying, brown groundhog moving across the path. Why, oh why, did not anyone haunt this trail with their regular presence, as its beauty would haunt them? Perhaps, Ted's reasoning whispered, perhaps this beauty had arisen from the abandonment. But no, that could not be so. The lightly tossing movement of the branches, the sunlight, the shade, they would have been the same before the path had been left forever to nature. Yet it was abandoned. Perhaps, yes, where the path ended would tell him.

          "Mother, I'm going to the woods for a while, to explore a part I haven't been in yet. I'll try to be back before dark." Those had been his words when he left earlier that afternoon. He'd gone down the lane, had turned off at a well-worn path in the part of the woods he was familiar with. Then he had gone to the vaguely familiar area. Then the unfamiliar. Then the beginning of the path he was now on, that he had found behind a whitish-branched tree, interwoven by a tangle of leafy vines. Then following the path to where he was now walking.

          "Enjoy yourself, son. Would you like some sandwiches?" That had been Mother's reply.

          "Well, no." Mother had sat down to some darning then and he had left.

          But where did the path end, Ted thought, why was it abandoned?

          The path's ending. It recalled a memory. "Mother, does everything have an end?" He had asked that of her years and years ago. When he was a little boy. Mother had just finished telling him Father was dead, that he had died fighting for his country.

          "Does everything have an end?" Mother had repeated. Her wonderful eyes had not been red, but her face had been pale. "No, Teddy."

          "But, Father - the sobs had tried to come as he spoke. He had held them back.

          "No, Teddy, everything leads into something else - let me explain. Do you know what boyfriends and girlfriends are?"

          "Yes."

          "I was a girl once - as young as the girls that go to the high school near your school in town. I was out of high school soon - my girl's path was ended. I was a woman and there was any  one of several boyfriends I could have married. I chose Father. I followed a path with him. Now he's gone. And I have, again, many paths to chose from - work, live with relatives for support, other things."

          "But, Father!" The sobs had broken then. She had held him. But - she hadn't gotten across her words.

          All things did have an end, Ted knew. School ended every June. And good times like parties and sports games and winter sledding, ended. And bad times too, like slushy days, and clouded nights ended. And Father had ended.

          Suddenly Ted halted. The air was depressed. A dense, a heavy feeling was covering the entire area. There were no bird notes. There were no birds--

          Ted looked around, scared. What was wrong? Shade - that was it. Shade - the sun was out - but shade stretched to the curve before him, and shade stretched behind him. He hadn't noticed it in his thinking. Yet, the feeling in the air was becoming more heavy, more dense. What was wrong - something, something more trapping than the shade.

          A movement. Five feet away. Repulsion, terror gripped Ted. A coiled snake was there. Rattling - a rattlesnake. Reptiles were along the path too, then. It would strike soon. Run, Ted, run, his insides cried out.

          But his heart cried out even more, where does the path go? Why is it abandoned? Is it abandoned because of this stretch of shade? Because of reptiles, like this rattlesnake? Was the rattler warning him not to go further? Not to find where the path led? Not to know why it was abandoned?

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          "No." Ted shook his head, swallowing. The rattler was fully four feet, and the shade made him feel scared, but he had to know where the path led to, and why it was dying, or would he forever be haunted by the memory of this day.

          Ted jumped back, tearing his eyes from the sight of the viper to look for a weapon. A short, stout fallen branch caught his attention. He caught it up in his hands, and without waiting leapt in at the snake. The rattler hadn't been prepared for the shortened target and it's head shot out, too far. Ted whirled, and brought down the branch heavily, smashing the skull. He leapt again, back from the writhing body. The head didn't move from where it lay, crushed. The patterned body writhed some more, then stopped. The rattler was dead.

          Nausea overcame Ted. A snake never failed to send chills up his spine. Alive or dead. He took the branch and shoved one end under the middle portion of the fleshy, cylindrical body. He lifted up the drooping thing and tossed it off into a clump of weeds. He threw the stick after it.

          Reaction set in. Ted ran. To get away from the thought of the snake, to get away from the chilling shade, to find the end of the path.

          Another curve, and Ted stopped, panting. The path's end was right before him - it was a pond-gray, grim; the rim of the water shaded. The sight didn't halt him long though. For sunlight, sunlight, he had to have friendly sunlight. To get away from the shade and the snake. Then he would take in the pond, but not until.

          Ted ran to the bank's lip, and flung , his clothes off. He splashed in, and swam through the shade water to the sun-covered center. Here, Ted breathed easier, becoming calmer, swimming in rough circles.

          He looked about now, treading water. This unexpected pond was rather serene. Shady to be sure, but there, the one bank was drenched with sunlight. He swam back to his clothing, and climbed out onto the bank. He dressed, his skin sopping wet, and walked around the pond's rim to the sun-bathed bank. He laid down on the heat-baked grasses, soaking in the sun.

          "Mother-" Ted pictured himself. He'd get home and he'd say to her - "Mother, I found a path today. It ended------It-------------"

          Ted looked at the pond. Mother had said paths ended in other paths. Paths. Endings. He took off his clothes again. He went into the water again. And dived. Down, down, Ted went. No bottom. No bottom a naked swimmer could reach. He shot back to the surface, and went again to the bank, and again put on his clothes.
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          Paths. Endings. The path to the pond, the rattlesnake on the way. The path to the pond, the pond with an unreachable bottom. Other paths. Other paths.

          Why, that was it. Mother was right. There had been other paths. It would have been a different path if he had run from the rattlesnake. It would have been a different path if he had followed an unheeded whispering whim to seek the birds with the unidentifiable voices. It would have even been a different path if he had not dived. And everything was paths or along them. Clouded nights, slushy days, winter sledding, sports games, parties, all were part of a life's path.

          But - but Father? Ted looked again , at the bottomless pond. Bottomless, unending. Father was like that - Father had ended here in mortality, as the pond with the path, but Father hadn't ended in the thereafter, as the pond's depth.

          Ted turned. He'd go and tell Mother. It had been a warming, revealing day.

          Ted was very calm, though, and even quiet, as he turned. For while Ted knew he had found one of life's secrets, he was also aware of something else. Not of the lane of shade, not of the rattlesnake, but of a fact. The fact that the path itself still was dying.

-end-

Raymond Lee Collins

Thomas Hall , EIU

Charleston, IL

March 1971

copyright reserved by publisher

Cheryl I Collins