Mapping the Infinite Forest: Day 2

I start walking as soon as it’s light enough to see.

The amount of birdsong here is amazing. Back home, in the city, you’d be lucky to hear a lonely blackbird over the rush of early morning traffic, but here…here it’s peaceful. Not quiet, certainly not quiet. The chorus accompanies my walk, and it’s almost pleasant. This is what I live for; the crisp air and lively songs of the birds greeting the day with as much enthusiasm as me. This I’d love to show Jessie.

The only downside to this wonderous morning is that I’m currently lost. It’s worth it, to experience the life of the Forest, vivid around me, but still I miss my little hut and the cheery grins and greetings of the villagers. They’ve begun to feel like home.

When I first entered the Forest, the sun was ahead of me, so now I put it behind to walk in the right direction. It’s difficult to pinpoint through the thick crowns of the crowded trees, but I do my best. I hadn’t gone that far in yesterday, so I should reach the treeline today – and then all I have to do is locate the village. Easy as that. Find treeline, locate village. Take a day off (at this point, I need it), and return to map the area I covered yesterday. There, that’s a plan. We’re off to a good start.

I’m losing hope as the day goes on. These trees seem never ending, but they must have an end – I came in at an edge, so all I need to do is find it again, right? Turns out, that’s easier said than done. I don’t know what it is, why I’m still in the Forest – though the sun was mostly hidden, I seem to have stayed in roughly the right direction, because the fiery glow of sunset is now ahead of me. I keep walking and keep walking, but it seems I’ve travelled in a circle somehow, and I’m now back where I started the day. I think. All the trees look the same, everything looks the same.

It’s getting too dark to continue. Here’s to a better day tomorrow. A least I know this is a good place to sleep…if it is indeed where I spent the night last night…

“Mapping – no, Escaping the Infinite Forest: Day 6

“It’s so quiet in here. I’ve taken to talking to myself, singing, humming, anything to hear a human voice. Not to say that it’s silent, of course – the ever-present birds mock me from the treetops, free-flying, free – and all sorts of little creatures making a terrible racket; much like a horde of demanding toddlers. And what creatures! Remarkably many for an ‘inescapable’ forest – although, if no-one comes in, there’s only natural predators. They clearly don’t think of me as one. With no human contact before me, they’re tame as mice. Squiggly squirrels treat me like just another tree, irritating insects clamber over me at night like I’m just another rock on the Forest floor…I’m covered in bites. I stepped into the Forest’s jaws, and now it’s eating me. Serves me right, I guess, for invading – as long as it sticks to the insects. I’ve heard roars and howls in the distance, screeches and yowls, haunting calls, close enough to give me shivers, and it does nothing but increase my desire to get out. And I’ve been trying, god knows I’ve been trying. Walking in a dead straight line, in the hopes that the trees will begin to thin and I’ll see the welcome sight of another human. Maybe Alys or Jessie. Oh how I miss you. Oh how I miss you…

“Jessie would love you, squirrels. Tame enough to sit in her hands, like the hamster we always promised but never got. I’m sorry Jessie. I’ll bring you a squirrel, put it on a leash – no, no leash. They deserve to be free. I won’t take that away from them, because I know now how it feels to be trapped in a place you don’t want to be, with unknowns on every side. All I hope is that soon, I’ll see the end.”