NOTE: This is still under revision, but getting close to final. This will also be turned in for my creative writing class. Any feedback would be appreciated.
I was lying in the damp grass one night, letting the dew form around my motionless body. Somehow staring into the stars makes me feel comfortable. It’s not often that I lay in the middle of the field behind my house, let alone at night. I’m not really sure what led me to think that lying down in a field would be helpful, but somehow, it’s calming. As the dew settles onto the grass, I can feel it soaking into my shirt, and that cooling sensation is helpful, letting me move away from the events of my day.
Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. My name is Aaron. I live in a small town, in rural New Hampshire. I’m almost 20 years old, not tall, but not incredibly short either. Last time I checked, I was about 5′10″, but that was with my very worn down hemp Converse Chuck Taylor’s on, and was pretty unofficial. That is, I have no way of knowing if the markings on the lamp post I was leaning on were actually correspondent to anything. I’m attending the local Community College in my town, because it’s free to live at home. Once I finish up this year, hopefully my grades will be good enough to transfer to a four-year school.
I’m a photographer. I started teaching myself about photography in high school, when I was going through some of my Mom’s old stuff in our dusty attic. We moved into this house right before I started high school, and just deposited most of our boxes up in a couple of unfinished rooms over our garage. The house seems as though the garage was an add-on, almost an after thought. I mean, you’ve got this really old farmhouse, with a barn that is made entirely out of wood, complete with the wooden nails, and full tree trunk rafters. Our barn is enormous. But yeah, the house is of similar build to the barn, with more contemporary insides, as though someone went through and re-did all the trim, and the floors. I assume the garage, between the house and the barn, was added at the same time. What makes me think that someone re-did the insides of the house? All of the trim is newish, and looks substantially more contemporary than the rafters in our unfinished, dirt floor basement.
Granted, I don’t think anyone could call the rest of our house finished either. It’s as though someone put all the new trim on, and either ran out of money, or was run out of their house, because nothing has been painted. It looks a little weird at first, the relative roughness of unfinished wood against walls that have been painted a number of different times. At this point, after living with it for a while, I feel like it would be wrong to shellac the trim, or paint it, or finish it in some other way.
Anyway, photography, that’s what I was talking about. As I was saying, I started playing with my Mom’s old camera that I found in our attic. As I got better, and as it became harder and harder to find the chemicals and time needed to develop old 35mm film, I started to move to digital. It’s easier, but you don’t get the same authentic feeling you do from a 35mm camera. When you’re snapping a lot of pictures with a 35mm, you have to change rolls of film; this is just untrue with a digital camera. Isn’t technology wonderful? I can wander around the town, snap pictures every 10 seconds, and never run out of room on my memory card. Suppose I were to run out of room. I can plug it in, upload my pictures into iPhoto and onto my Flickr account, and go again. It’s nice, it’s convenient, and it’s fast, but it’s not as real, you know?
As a photographer, I carry my camera with me everywhere, and in order to make sure I have enough space, I have my laptop with me too. I guess I’m kind of nerdy; I carry roughly $2000.00 worth of technology with me at all times. I don’t tell people at school that, they already know I’m a geek; I don’t need to give them more fodder. I don’t really care what they think of me, but they seem to care what they think of me, so I stay out of their way. I was walking home from school this afternoon, after an incredibly long day. Of the three classes I’m taking, two of them had mid-term exams scheduled for today, only one of which I had remembered to study for. Art History kicked my ass, and that’s the test I studied for! My other exam, in Mathematical Reasoning was probably equivalent to the kind of things you have to go through to work for the NSA. You know, like prove that you’ve never, ever done anything wrong in your life, and that you’re a genius? That’s how daunting this test was to me.
Needless to say, I’d had a stressful day of classes, so on my way home; I stopped at the local coffee shop, to just sort of chill out. I pulled open the door to The Dirty Bean, and was immediately enveloped in the deep aroma of freshly ground coffee beans. It was overwhelming, but overwhelming in the best way possible. The smell just overtook me, and I immediately forgot about everything that had happened at school. I walked to the counter, with a weird experimental fusion type of music playing in the background. It was almost a smooth jazz piece, complete with the deep voice of a tenor saxophone, but every now and again, an amped electric violin would cut in, giving a very up-beat feel to what would otherwise be a relatively calm piece. The barista finished making the previous customers’ drinks, and looked at me expectantly. Apparently she didn’t feel like she needed to ask me what I wanted. I recognized her, and nodded, acknowledging her presence. She quickly turned around, and busied herself making a drink. I cleared my throat and said
“Excuse me, I’d like a medium Mocha with Soy please.”
“I know, it’ll be ready in a minute” she responded in a raised voice, just loud enough to hear over the coffee grinder. ‘Weird’ I thought. ‘Maybe I come in here too much’. I pulled my camera strap off of my shoulder, and set it down on the table. I also removed my Timbuk2 messenger bag that I’ve had for seven years, and set it on the floor next to the chair.
“Medium Mocha with Soy!” the barista shouted. I wandered over to the counter.
“Thanks” I said.
“Not a big deal, anything else?”
“No, I think that’ll do it.” I handed her a ten-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks!” She smiled brightly, her tongue right up against the backs of her teeth. Her green eyes met mine; she winked, and turned to help the next customer. I wandered back to my table, and pulled out my computer, and the USB cable to upload the pictures from my camera. I connected the cable to both the laptop and the camera, turned on the camera, and waited for iPhoto to pop up, and start downloading the pictures. “1254 pictures to download. Do you want to delete them from your camera?” the computer asked me. I clicked the “Yes” button, and watched the progress bar as it moved in a jilted way, from left to right. It was about halfway done before I looked up from my screen, to see the barista straddling the backwards chair, across the table from me.
“Hi” she said.
“Hi, how long have you been sitting there?” I asked her. She was looking at me expectantly, as though she’d been sitting watching me for 15 minutes.
“Umm… 2 minutes? Maybe?” She said, grinning a bit.
“I’m Aaron,” I said, holding out my hand. She glanced at it, raised her eyes again to meet mine, and grabbed my hand.
“Me too” she said, her eyes widening with excitement.
“Weird. Do I know you? I feel like you recognize me or something.”
“We’re in The Kitchen and Society together, at the college” she replied, laughing.
“We are? I… I don’t pay that much attention to people. Most people don’t like me.” I said as I averted my eyes, embarrassed that she recognized me, but I had no idea who she was. “It feels like I’m invisible all the time. I don’t really want anyone to see me, and they don’t, seemingly. “
“I make a point to know everyone I see. I watch people, see, and understanding interactions is much easier if you understand more about the people interacting”
“What? What else do you know about me?”
“Well, let’s see. You like Medium Mocha’s with Soy, you’re a photographer, but you prefer film to digital, you knit on occasion, and most days you’re riding your beat up old Schwinn” She said, in a very matter of fact tone.
“You know this is kind of creepy for me right?” I asked, a little bit weirded out.
“You know you open yourself up a lot more than you think you do right?” She replied. “I mean, when you come into class, sit in the back corner, and start knitting, people will know you knit. When you ride your bike to school, people will know you ride a bike. When you argue with the teacher about how the image on her computer of a 1950s kitchen must either be scanned in, or photoshopped, because of the artifacting that’s so blatantly obvious, people will know your a photo buff. It’s just a matter of being observant really.”
“I’d forgotten I had that discussion with her. She was so wrong” I replied.
“I know, I know, photography nerds are always right” she said, glancing at me in a very teasing way.
“Hey now, that’s not what I mean, only that she didn’t know what she was talking about” I responded defensively. “Ok, so I get a little bit worked up. What about you? I don’t know anything about you.”
“That’s right,” she said as she got up, picked up the chair, and spun it around so it was facing the right direction. She leaned over the table slightly. “And you won’t.” She tapped me on the nose with her pointer finger, and walked back to the counter, to resume her duties.
“Wait! I ah… When do you get off work?” I asked
“Why?” She asked teasingly, glancing over her shoulder, but not stopping.
“I was wondering if you wanted to hang out this afternoon. I mean, if you’re not busy or…” I trailed off, awkwardly. This is the part where I started regretting immediately I’d said anything. Mostly because I didn’t have anything planned, but also because social interaction is always awkward for me.
“Sure! What’re we going to do?” she asked, seemingly excited by the prospect.
“I… uh… I have no idea. Do you want to go for a walk? Or something? I wasn’t really expecting you to say yes…” I said, still looking at my shoes.
“That’d be nice, should I meet you at the park bench down the road in an hour and a half?” She asked, still smiling.
“Uh… yeah, I’ll meet you there.” I said, making eye contact with her, and turning to leave.
“Cool! I’ll see you then Aaron!” She said as I left.
As I left the shop, the sun shone down over the top of the house across the street. I was not expecting the substantial change in brightness that sunlight brings, so as the sun hit my eyes, I began to see spots. I squinted my eyes a couple times, and continued walking. I walked past the yarn store, and glanced in the window to see if they had anything interesting. The aisles of shelving units full of yarn didn’t look any different than they normally do, complete with the same old lady who’s always in there. She must spend all of her time and money in that yarn store, and not do anything else. Today it looked like she was making socks, but that may have been only for that hour.
I continued walking, and headed toward the corner, where the bench I was supposed to meet Erin was located. I sat down, and began to mess with the images I had just uploaded to my computer. This is another reason I prefer 35mm cameras, you don’t have to spend time touching them up. If you have a digital picture, you don’t have any justification for it to be poorly done. However, if you’re using film, you have to get the shot right the first time, and you have to be much more careful about the settings you use. I removed the grain from most of the images, and wasted time on the Internet until I saw Erin walking towards me.
“Hey you” she said as she neared.
“Hi, how was work?”
“It was fabulous, I can’t wait to go back. I actually wanted to work for 6 more hours, but my boss wouldn’t let me” she replied, sarcastically.
“Shall we go, smartass?” I asked, teasingly.
“Sure. So where are we walking to? She asked, looking at me expectantly, as though I had a plan.
“Uh, well, my house is just down the street, and there are some woods behind it, I thought we could go wander around in there for a while. We’ve got kind of a cool barn” I replied, making things up as I went along. That is, there actually are woods behind my house, and we actually do have a barn, but this was not planned out at all.
We walked silently for a couple blocks, with my casting sidelong glances at her. Every single time I would look at her, she would be looking; we’d make awkward eye contact, and go back to looking straight ahead. The walk to my house was sort of awkward, but she seemed nice, and I told her I’d hang out.
There was something about her, every time I made eye contact with her, I felt like there was something different about her, as though she was somehow above the worries of life, or not bothered by the minutiae of every day. I thought about asking her about it, but decided it was probably just that she was so assured in herself.
“So, have you always lived here?” I asked her, breaking the silence. I looked over, and she was already looking at me, smiling. Again, she had the weird self-assuredness feeling. I put it out of my mind
“I was born in Boston, and lived there for most of my schooling. Right before high school, my parents decided I needed to see ‘other walks of life’, so we moved to the middle of nowhere New Hampshire,” she said. “You?”
“First, I was born in middle of nowhere New Hampshire, thank you very much! But yeah, I’ve lived here my entire life. My dad owns the car dealership on the outside of town” I replied, kind of defensively.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it, it’s just hard to get used to small towns, and when your parents live somewhere, and you don’t have money to move elsewhere, you feel kind of trapped” She said.
“I guess I can understand that, but at the same time, it’s nice to know your neighbors, and it’s nice to be able to walk for ten minutes, and get to your friends house” I replied. “Cities are scary, I don’t know if I could ever live in one”.
“Oh really? Why?”
At this point, we’d reached the edge of my property I stopped and turned towards Erin. “Ok, which do you prefer? Barn or woods?” I asked.
“Umm… I’d prefer woods, I think.” She replied. “Although I’m sure the barn is cool too” she added hastily.
“Woods it is” I replied. “Can I show you pictures of the barn at least?”
“Sure, how long will it take?” she asked.
“Not long, here.” I replied as I pulled my messenger bag around to the front of my body, opened it, and pulled out my computer. I flipped it open, and double-clicked on the “Barn” album in iPhoto. “Here you can see the front of the barn, this part here has been painted twice since I can remember, because of the way the wind hits it in the winter.”
“Oh cool” she replied.
“This is a shot standing from the main door looking in. If you look here, you can see the original wooden nails used to build it,” I said, becoming aware that Erin’s interest was quickly dwindling.
“That’s actually kind of cool, the fact that it’s still intact and all” she said, showing mild interest.
“You’re bored aren’t you?” I asked, glancing sideways at her.
“Very much so, yes” She replied, giggling nervously.
“No worries, to the woods” I said, putting my computer back in my bag. “Let me just drop off my stuff in my house. Do you want to come in?” I asked.
“No, I’ll just hang out here, wouldn’t want your mom to get the wrong idea or something” She said.
“Touché. I’ll be right back” I took off jogging, away from where we’d stopped, and around the front of my house. I skipped the two first stairs onto our porch, opened the screen door, and held it there with my left foot. I unlocked the door, opened it, and set everything on my dining room floor.
I turned back around, closed and locked my door, and let the screen door slam shut, as I hopped off the porch. I was anxious not to leave Erin standing there too long, as I didn’t want her to be bored. I jogged back around my house, to where Erin was standing. The sun was starting to set, and her silhouette against the early part of the sunset made her look almost regal. ‘Weird’ I thought to myself ‘must just be her posture’.
“So, the woods” I said as I approached her.
“That’s right, which direction?” She asked me, gazing intently into my eyes.
I averted them quickly “umm… this way” I said, pointing to my left, and we started walking again.
“So, why are cities scary?” She asked me.
“All the hustle and bustle of cities, with all of the buses, and cars, and gangs. It’s frightening.” I replied
“Frightening? You’re afraid of things that are different than what you know?” She tucked her hair behind her ear, and then quickly changed her mind, letting it fall to where it was, encircling her face. It looked like her ear was malformed, or something.
As I watched her hair fall back into place, I realized there was a small bump, slightly higher than where most people’s ear lobes finish. It struck me as kind of odd, and I considered asking her about it. However, since we’d just met, I figured I’d let it go.
At this point, we’d reached the woods, and had sort of stopped, because we’d been pretty engaged in our discussion. The trees to my left were at least twice as tall as we were, and the branches were hanging over our heads, as though they were about to snatch both of us up, and carry us away. It was a sort of ominous feeling, and it started sinking in, even as we continued our conversation.
“Well, no. I’m not sure what I mean, never mind.” I replied. Now I’m just embarrassed, she thinks I’m a closed-minded hick or something. I guess that’s sort of true, I was raised in a small town, and haven’t ever really left.
I look at her sidelong, and I notice that she’s wearing a leaf pendant around her neck, and now that I’m paying attention, she’s wearing leather boots that go up to her knees. She’s… oddly together. That’s a weird way of putting it, but everything about her seems perfectly in its place, as though there’s nothing imperfect about her.
We started walking into the forest, and the beams of sunlight were filtering down through the treetops. The wind was blowing above us, making the leaves seem as though they were whispering. Erin bounded ahead, seeming very happy to be in the woods, thoroughly enjoying herself. I watched, as she seemed very at home among the trees.
“Hey there’s this cool clearing up ahead!” She exclaimed, as she grabbed my hand, and pulled me forward into the woods, dashing between trees. We jogged through the forest for about 5 minutes, before reaching a clearing. The clearing was not only void of trees; it also seemed to be a perfect circle. The other odd thing I noticed was that as soon as we stepped into the clearing, the sun was no longer shining through the trees. Instead the moon had replaced the sun in the sky, and the darkness had replaced the light of day.
“What…” I started to say. She put her finger to her lips, to quiet me. I stepped beyond the perimeter of the circle, back into the woods, to see if the light would return, it did not. Erin moved towards the center of the clearing, and the moonlight shone down through the hole in the treetops dancing across her hair.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” She whispered. I nodded, afraid to speak. “It’s ok, you can talk, but not too loudly,” she whispered again.
“Wow… what is this place?” I asked, in a very hushed voice.
“It’s… well, it’s the Moon Circle” she said.
“The Moon Circle?” I asked in disbelief. I looked around, and the clearing was about as large as a medium sized classroom. There was a low laying fog, about twelve inches above the tip of the grass. The clearing wasn’t a perfect circle, but it wasn’t really an oval either, somewhere in between.
Erin seemed at peace here, as though she had been stiff throughout the day. I hadn’t noticed her rigidity earlier, because she was so self-assured. It wasn’t as though something was bothering her, but she just seemed more at ease.
“That’s right, the Moon Circle. It’s where my family members come every week at a given time, and we get rejuvenated by the beauty”
“I’m not sure I understand,” I said.
“Just watch.” She began to spin, very slowly in the center of the circle, making a point to look at every single tree encircling her, as though she was making eye contact with the trees. After about two minutes of her rotating, making eye contact with each individual tree, her body began to leave trails. It wasn’t as though she was shedding, but more like her fingertips, elbows, hips, and knees were all drawing in the air with light. As she rotated, these light trails formed four circles of light around her body. She raised her hands above her head, looked up at the moon, and vanished.
“ERIN!!!!” I yelled, running to where she had been standing, seconds prior. As I hit the spot she was in, I realized she was no longer anywhere to be found. I spun in circles, frantically scanning the tree line, looking for any sign of her. I dropped to my knees to search the grass, to see if she had left anything behind. As I spun around on my knees, like a dog readying it’s bed, my hand landed on something cold. I picked it up; it was her leaf necklace she had been wearing earlier in the day. I looked up at the moon, similar to the way Erin had done.
In an instant, I had been transported to the field behind my house, with dew beginning to form on the individual blades of grass. I open my eyes, and see the stars glittering above me in the night sky.
I have no idea what just happened to me, or to Erin, but I know I can’t move. I’m clutching her leaf pendant in my hand, and I’m remaining completely still. The pendant is starting to warm up, my body heat must be affecting it’s temperature. I’m supposed to be inside, but I can’t bring myself to move. The beauty of the forest is still imprinted on my brain, like that one moment that every single photographer is striving to catch on film, but no one can ever manage to get it exactly right. I can feel the dew seeping into the back of my t-shirt, cooling my body, relaxing my muscles. I’m not going home tonight. I’m going to lay here, bask in the beauty that the moon provides, and just – remember.
I can feel sleep starting to overtake me, my eyelids are becoming heavy. My muscles are completely relaxed; the pendant is resting on my unclenched fist. Just before my eyes close, I look up at the moon one more time, and see Erin’s face imprinted over the top. This afternoon has been amazing; it’s not something I’ll ever be able to remove from my mind. Finally, I let sleep overtake me, and fall into darkness that can only be found by complete relaxation.
