Innocence
A lake. Very big. I can’t even see where it ends.
Mountains, everywhere around me.
But most importantly, the trees. A forest, not just on the mountains but also on the ground.
It’ s warm. Not too hot, not too cold. A breeze picks up, fiddling with my hair. I can see butterflies, flying around me looking innocent. Just like everything around me, including myself. Innocent, beautiful.
Poor thing the blood will start flowing soon.
I clamp the axe a little more tightly, and hoist up my backpack. It’s necessary, I keep telling myself. If you want to stay alive, this is your only option.
One step. One step, then another. I watch my bare feet changing the flawless, sticky wet sand into a small footprint. My white dress is dirty and torn. The flower print isn’t recognizable anymore. That seems to count for me, too. Unrecognizable.
The breeze is messing up my hair now, not just fiddling with it anymore. It actually annoys me a lot, although I don’t know why. My hair has always been important to me. It once was blonde and a little curly, whereas now it’s cut off irregularly and filled with leaves and branches. If I’d have a brush, I wouldn’t be able to get out the knots in it. It feels weird to worry about these kind of things while I am going to do something which is worth a lot more worrying. But I just can’t help it.
Finally I reach the trees. Before I walk into the forest, I turn around and watch the beautiful landscape, trying to enjoy it. But I can’t. I just can’t. So I just turn my back to the beauty and enter the forest.
Only a few steps into the forest and the world around me completely transforms. The sound of the wind rushing over water has completely disappeared, replaced by the sound of insects and the wind rushing through the leaves, making the forest alive. A few steps further, and the only thing I can see around me are the trees. The beauty of it overcomes me and I have to sit down. A little meadow isn’t that far away, so I get myself to walk over there before I literally let myself fall down, right onto the grass.
Deep in the meadow, under the willow,
And I’m just lying on the grass, watching the branches of the high trees above me, looking at the leaves that rustle in the wind.
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow.
The song my mother sang to me when I was young. This place reminds me so much of it. It’s exactly the place I imagined when my mom would softly sing to me.
Lay down your head, and close your eyes.
Without even thinking about it, I open my mouth and start singing. The melody is slow, very slow. The first sentence sounds a little rusty, as I haven’t talked for quite a long time now. The second one is better, and during the third sentence, it actually sounds nice. But the sudden presence of an adult man makes me shut my mouth before the fourth sentence starts.
Is it him? I’m not sure. It could be. This area must be deserted, which is probably why he’s looking at me in such awe. At least, I think he’s looking at me, but his eyes itself seem to be looking at something close to me. Well, it can’t be something special as the only thing I took with me are the backpack and the axe, and –
The axe. Where is it? I’ve got to have it. It’s my only defense, and if that guy is the one, I am gonna need it.
Then I see it, not too far away from me. I must’ve flung it into a tree when I fell down. Without even thinking about it, I get up, sprint to the axe and defensively hold it in front of me. The guy must’ve been watching the axe, because his eyes haven’t moved but still he’s looking at me now.
‘Who are you?’ he asks me. I don’t respond, I just stand there with slightly shaking hands. His eyes travel from my face to the torn dress to the axe. But he isn’t scared. Not even in the slightest. And it annoys me. It isn’t very smart to annoy someone with an axe in her hand.
I’m pretty sure he’s the one. He’s got to be the one. There’s probably no one else in this whole area. And otherwise I’ll just have to live with the fact I killed an innocent guy.
With this thought in mind I lift my axe until it’s above my head. My eyes stay on his face. And there it is. It’s only a little bit and gone a second later, but I swear I saw fear flashing through his eyes.
‘Whoa, stop!’ he says, holding up his hands as if they’ll protect him against the axe.
‘You might hurt somebody, girl,’ he says. I really want to start applauding sarcastically and say something like ‘glad you figured it out’. But I don’t, because I’m scared and because the sarcastic me doesn’t exist in this place.
‘Who are you?’ the guy repeats.
‘My name isn’t going to tell you who I am,’ I say. Because I don’t want him to know my name and because it’s true.
The guy’s eyebrows travel up, over his forehead into his hair. Which is a little too long, he should definitely cut it.
‘That’s true,’ he mutters. ‘Then what are you doing here?’
I don’t respond. If he knows why I am here he’ll run away, and I don’t want that to happen because I’m not that fast of a runner.
So we both just stand there, watching each other. My face is indifferent, while his’ changes emotion constantly. From surprised to scared to calm to angry to indifferent.
‘Okay, can you please just lay down that axe?’ he asks at some point. I lower it a little, but that’s all he gets. He considers it for a moment, and then starts talking.
‘Well, my name is Marc and I live here. Of course my name doesn’t explain who I am, but you’ll have to live with it. On the mountain is a cottage, that’s my house. It isn’t much, but it’s something.’
After every sentence he says, he does another tiny step forward. His eyes rest on mine, and the corner of his mouth is twitching. As if he’s nervous.
He’s only a meter away when it happens. He launches forward, hands outstretched, aiming at the axe. He knocks me over, but the axe is clenched in my fist. We both lay on the ground, and stand up as quickly as possible. It’s now or never. The axe is lifted and then I throw it, right into his chest.
He lies still immediately. His body is twitching a little, but I can’t look at him. My knees tremble and I fall down, shaking.
I killed someone.
I actually robbed someone’s most prized and needed possession. Life.
Tears appear, my hands are shaking and I curl up into a ball. What did I just do? What did I just do?
I push my face into the grass, as if the fact that I can’t see anything changes what I did. It doesn’t. I killed someone. And there’s nothing I can do to make up for it.
Even though I’d love to lay down like this forever, I turn around and make myself to lie on my back. And then to sit up straight against a tree trunk. My eyes are still closed, I don’t want to see the corpse. But I open them anyways.
He’s gone.
Is he a zombie or something? No, he can’t be. But… he isn’t there anymore. And as far as I know, corpses don’t walk.
‘You are going to regret doing that.’
Or talk.
Or hold axes.
The guy – Marc – watches me from the tree line, his face indifferent.
‘You shouldn’t have done that.’ He lifts the axe and throws it, and I know dive to my right, but it’s too late. The axe is in my chest already. And Marc just turns around and leaves me there, with the axe in my chest and life pouring out of me.
I feel myself falling onto the grass, and I watch the sky above me. It’s a beautiful place to die. The meadow from in the song. And just before Death takes me away, I am able to sing the last sentence of the song.
When again they open, the sun will rise.
