It's a funny thing. Sometimes I'm so fucking reckless. I'm just stupid, really.
Risk, whatever, fuck it.
Who cares? What have I got to lose?
You have to have something of value first, no?
I place no value in my existence, so whatever.
I don't give a shit.
It's been a long time since I went anywhere near a ravine. In fact, I studiously avoid them. Even if another route would be much longer and I could just cut through. No chance. Never.
And certainly never, ever alone. Not since that day.
That afternoon 18 years ago when my life changed, almost to the day. Almost exactly to the day.
So it was a funny thing when I walked along a road at dusk yesterday and found myself staring headlong into a deep and heavily wooded ravine. How is it that I had never noticed this before?
Then suddenly a dark smile crept across my face. Should I? Shouldn't I? James would be so pissed off. People would say I deserved any undesireably consequences, it was such a stupid idea. Yes, I thought. Excellent. Fuck it.
So I climbed (climbed? is that the right word? anyway) over the short metal fence and proceeded down the embankment. Once I reached the bottom, there was another decision to be made. To the right would be toward civilization. Surely this wood came out at the park by the video store. To the left was wilderness that went seemingly into infinity.
So I went left.
The path was almost totally overgrown. I could see that a dog with muddy feet had been there sometime in the past few days. There was one other set of human prints, but otherwise, nothing. There was some climbing over logs and rocks. Some jumping over streams coming off the main body of water.
But mostly, it was thick trees and bushes with prickly branches, many uneaten berries, rocks, brush. And you couldn't even see three feet in front of you at times. At others, I would look back and just see trees and trees and bushes and trees, while the tiny path quickly disappeared windy amongst them.
And all the while the creek. Bubbling and gurgling flowing and making all of those all too familiar sounds.
The funny thing was, I sort of loved it. I loved being terrified. At first, I even loved the flashbacks, all those familiar sensory experiences. Because it was different. It was something not new, but not recent, to hurt about. To ache over. To be tormented by. No other distractions work, you see. There is no heretofore known escape.
So I discovered that the only vacation from my currently horrid state of mind is the re-ignition of past nightmares. Of pure adrenaline-pumping fear.
To heighten the risk of wandering an almost abandoned ravine at dusk for over an hour, I decided to put on my headphones and listen to some creepy 90's tunes. You know, for the mood.
After about an hour and darkness falling and the realization that there was no end to this forest in sight, that perhaps I should turn around, as there was no obvious other way back up the embankment, I decided to continue because hey, maybe no one came here anymore. Or maybe I would end up lost in the woods in the dark. Oh well. One foot in front of the other.
And so I continued. Looking back every once in a while. My previous route totally disappeared. But I never saw anything or anyone or any sign of anything alive that wasn't already living there. I tried to keep quiet while trying to figure out where the path actually was and what was just wilderness.
And then I saw a bush move up ahead and across the creek. What the fuck!?! And after a second a large dog pounced out and into the creek and across it, then past me. I chuckled to myself. A dog. That was probably the best available option for creatures, human or otherwise, bounding out of the woods. So I prepared myself for the inevitable owner of the dog. But none came.
I took off my headphones, and put them in my pocket, so I could listen for footsteps and to hopefully avoid being robbed, if necessary. But no one came.
I continued walking for another 10 or 15 minutes. But no one came.
Then I heard what sounded like high-pitched teenage girl shrieks. I considered that perhaps I was going to walk into some kind of crime being committed. Visions of "Durham County" swirled about my head. I kept walking, slowly. The shrieks stopped but other sounds continued. There were clearly multiple people up ahead.
Then three teenage girls came toward me from the opposite direction. Chatting. Ignoring me entirely. They smelled of pot. And within a second or two I came to a small clearing in the woods, surrounded by several extremely large trees. That area completely stank of weed. And I smiled. Newly convinced that there actually was an exit in the direction I was heading and I wouldn't have to walk back through the ravine in the dark.
So I kept going. I crossed a bridge, as the path all but disappeared.
I climbed up a steep embankment on the other side of the creek. And the path there took me up to the back of a school. Of course. I smiled a sick little smile. Of course it came to a school. Of course it did. Just like my ravine had all those years ago. And I wondered if every ravine at the back of every school was equally home to acts of violence.
It was about 10 pm at that point. So, the field between the school and the ravine was empty. There was one car, a station wagon, sitting in the parking lot. There were clearly at least 2 people inside. As I walked along the field toward the parking lot, the driver watched me. I began to get the creeps. He was clearly too old to be a student and even though there was no one in the front seat, there was at least one person in the back seat that he was trying to keep under control. He watched me intently as I proceeded past his vehicle, turning to the back seat and saying something from time to time.
At the other end of the field, I was given two options, to head back into the woods along a path on the other side of the creek, or cross another side of the field and take the road. We formed a sort of triangle. The street in one corner, the creepy station wagon in another, and me at the forest entrance.
I started down the ravine path, feeling daring. I looked back for a second, and could see him craning around the steering wheel, trying to see which way I was going. I went down the gravel path about 5 metres, then decided that perhaps I had had enough risk taking for one day. So I turned around and came back out the trail head and headed toward the street. A few seconds after I emerged, the car engine started up and the car pulled out of the lot very slowly.
I had almost reached the street when the car started to very slowly, like 5-10 kms/hr slowly, drive down the road, all the while watching me closely. So I slowed down, pretended to look at my phone. The car passed and continued going very slowly for another several seconds before picking up speed and driving away. Maybe I'm too old for his tastes I thought. Maybe I'm paranoid. Maybe his captive in the back seat needed to be gotten home to his basement cage. Who knows.
I walked down along the street that lined the ravine. As I approached the park by the video store, I heard a series of screams and then the three girls I had crossed paths with earlier emerged from the woods with another girl and about 4 boys. They were all walking very fast, looking back, and then began to run.
I saw two other teenage guys also come out, with weird expressions on their faces. Like trying to be cool, but looking kind of scared. That was when I realised that the universe was being kind to me that day.
Because it could have been so much worse.
To have ventured head long, out of some stupid desire to escape, into one of my most severe past traumas under really stupid conditions, begging for trouble and for nothing bad to have happened was nothing short of amazing.
That under those circumstances, a non-violent dog was the first creature I came upon, is probably the best scenario I could have ever hoped for. That subsequent to that a few doped teenage girls were encountered, also totally fucking great for my mental health. That I emerged from that wood, utterly unscathed, despite some scratched arms, is to my mind beyond fantastic.
Because sometimes it's good to exercise your demons. To remind yourself that they are there and that they are scary, and that that's okay. But that I'm not 12 years old anymore. That I can enter a ravine and emerge a ravine and for it to be beautiful and interesting and fine. And to discover anew that maybe I do want to be alive, and safe, and in one piece. Because I honnestly thought when I went in there that I was taking the risk of possibly re-experiencing something horrible because I didn't care. Because anything that anybody could physically do to me is never going to be worse than what I've been through. And no amount of fresh pain is going to exceed all of the old pain. So to come out of it grateful that nothing happened and glad for the experience, was genuinely surprising.
And funnily enough, I was in a much better mood when I walked into that video store than I think I have been in a very long time. Many months at least. I felt reborn in a way. Which is a bit dumb, because really nothing very exciting happened. But it was something big to me.
So I bought a great movie. And I rented two movies that I really want to see and James doesn't and in that beautiful moment, I didn't give a shit what anyone wanted but me. The whole world could go collectively fuck itself, because I was good.
I took a long way back to my house. Hitting back streets, walking by a very smelly camper van that seemed to contain a lot of electronic equipment. I sang Hip songs out loud. I ignored the phone vibrating in my pocket. I walked through parks and along streets I had never seen before and I meandered my way back.
And I didn't care about anyone or anything except the next tune.
It was a beautiful night and I slept peacefully.
