The Woods (working title), Part I

The following is the beginning of a story I decided to write this past week. It's come to my attention that I've spent probably over 10 years trying to figure out what it means to grow up -- and this story is me still trying to come to terms with everything that involves. Feedback would be good (Josh?), so feel free to "tear it up" and go nuts.

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Once upon a time, there was a place caught between seasons. It was a place where autumn still lingered when winter was long overdue. It was a place where boys played outside and wore knitted caps, fingerless gloves and handy-down bomber jackets to protect themselves from an always-approaching chill. It was a place where trees changed their colors with unyielding frequency, and where each falling leaf resonated in the wind like a tuning fork – which could strike a chord in even the bitterest and most sensible of hearts. Among this boundless spread of trees, the boys found a place where adventure was equally immeasurable.

Darmy and Middy were waiting for Kaffy to return with new orders. As ritual demanded, they carried out their current game until further instruction arrived. It was a rather sluggish game of marbles. Darmy had drawn the circle in the dirt with a finger and took his time educating Middy on the rules despite Middy’s anxious fidgeting. His apprehension had cost him seven games in a row.

“Again?” cried Middy. “You win every time! Darmy, how’d you get so good at marbles?”

“I’ve played a lot, Middy” stated Darmy. “You have to play a lot to be good.”

Middy was small and the youngest, not a day older than nine. He wore an oversized cap with flaps that went down well past his narrow shoulders. Darmy was maybe fifteen and was the only boy who had an air-powered BB gun. When not hanging at his side, the plastic weapon leaned against a tree stump – the same old tree stump that Darmy had secretly hollowed a notch to hide various knickknacks. The tree stump also acted as the boys’ meeting spot. When one of them was sent out to get instructions, he would return to the stump to find the other boys waiting for him, continuing whatever game they were directed to play, and this was precisely what Darmy and Middy were doing this particular day.

“I don’t want to play anymore,” said Middy. “I want to play a new game.”

“Me too,” said Darmy, “but we got to wait for Kaffy to come back.”

“I know,” muttered Middy as Darmy began to divide the marbles again. “Them’s the rules.”

“One more game?” he asked.

Middy didn’t answer. He pushed back his cap. Out of the corner of his eye and through several layers of gray tree trunks he saw Kaffy, wearing a blue coat with a green hat, emerging from the woods. The sound of his worn-out tennis shoes pounding the leaves as he ran wasn’t as loud as his panting – as he had been running all the way from the hideout on the other side of the woods. Instead of calling out to the other boys, Kaffy took a deep breath and crowed like a rooster – a ritual that Darmy and Middy knew to mimic in response. The three boys’ howls echoed through the tree branches, and for a brief, nearly nonexistent moment Darmy felt the woods come alive with a feeling he knew he had grown numb to – a feeling that, if he had known the word, he would have called ecstasy. Adventure, he thought. It’s about time. He grabbed his gun from the stump and ignored the marbles that he had let scatter among the leaves.

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-B