Deeper and Deeper
A city in the woods. Or a woods in the city. It is the lure of danger, the not-knowingness, the chance for an unromantic romance, a careless love, that draws us here into the unkempt walking paths of the park where no one walks, not a soul, except for us. Hello, I hear a voice speak into the hush. Interested? I wasn’t. Deeper and deeper into the thicket I go. Some might say down the rabbit hole. I wouldn’t. I could make myself perfectly fleecable, an easy target, though I am in nonstop motion. Same with everybody else. If we don’t find what we are looking for, we keep looking. A kind of hunt, a sort of search. Clearly nothing becomes us more in life than this specific quest. An hour spent plumbing the abysses of the grove, coming up empty-handed, I hear again, hello. It is someone else, someone new. New to me, anyway. The sun is setting now and everybody, myself included, looks just a touch more beautiful in the desperate, crepuscular glow. He will kiss me, or kill me. Or he will walk past me as if he has not seen me at all. Hello, I reply. He asks me a question with his eyes. I answer with my hands. Seconds. Minutes. A lifetime. You know men — they come and they —
Go!
It is one of those false scares. When a distant siren causes all of us to scatter out of the overgrown bush like rats. He takes my hand in his and we run out of the forest to the edge of the river where we can be seen openly, as if we were mere passerby. A common couple getting our daily steps in before trudging onward home to make another complicated dinner and settle down in front of the television for the remainder of the endless night.
At the river, he laughs. I join him. Close call, he says. We are all exiles in the forest. Outside, we are adults. People with jobs, bank accounts, unpaid parking tickets. Well, it was nice meeting you, I say. He laughs again. An attractive laugh, an honest laugh, and I can see in his eyes a kindness that allows me, briefly, to get under the rock of who he is and why he is the way he is. I wouldn’t say we met exactly, he says. I introduce myself. But that’s not your real name, he asks. It wasn’t. We laugh again. I better go. Sorry we didn’t get to finish, he says. You could come over, I say. His hand leaves mine. No thank you, that’s not why we’re here. He walks away, picks up a light jog, turns back, waves, smiles, and runs out of view. Then it is only me, looking out at the empty concrete river, alone.