Леca (W is for Woods)

I was going to see the hangman, who lived all alone in the woods. They told me to follow the trail of whiskey bottles and trees scarred with ax blows along the branches. He lived in the center of the woods so it did not matter the route I took to his house and I did not look back as I entered the timeless, misty, still trees resembling thin, white ghosts.

As I walked along the unmarked trails, I noticed how monochromatic the world became, how decisions in these woods were answered with desperate, definite rigor. The sun here was pale and shy, sky shattered in pieces by the svelte birch limbs reaching out towards heaven.

These were the woods where people stumbled out wearing crowns of thorns or blue lips and cold blood.

It felt like a different time zone, reality warped by thick must mixed with the smell of rain and recklessness. I was told that I need not bring a compass: the untangled coils of rope decomposing around roots would direct me. I was also told not to listen to the sirens in the leaves.

Fearing I’ve gone to far, I turned behind me to see if I had missed his house only to find that the way I came looked exactly like the way I was going. I spun to each side and discovered a four way mirror. No matter where I turned, it all was the same. What if I…

Don’t look up.

This advice erupted from the back of my mind.

“Don’t look up,” I repeated and continued on my way. Echos tung out from the peaks of the birches, reverberating in between the low cloud tides.

Don’t look up.

How could the hangman live in such sinister, such swallowing, such spellbinding solidarity? Although, it is only those who lack sanity, who put profit in his pocket. And such people are far from comforting company.

Those like I.

At this moment, I encountered a change in the pattern of barcode bleached bark and black shadows; I encountered a cabin.

The hangman’s house.

When I approached the chestnut coloured cabin, I realized how the rusted, ornate, steel gate gave life to the still shelter. The door pushed open with barely any effort, however, upon inspection, the rooms were empty. But it was impossible to consider this furnished cabin to be abandoned for there wasn’t a speck of dust on any surface.

“Hello? Is anybody home? Sir-“

But then I heard it. Monotonous and foreign to me until I moved closer to the kitchen window.

The shrill creak of rope swinging against bark.