Avoiding the Void

Beyond the forest edge the landscape flattened. The tree-covered hills were gone, replaced by flat grassland as far as the eye could see. And there was a stream winding thru the waving grass. It came meandering out of the wood and passed under a lone fallen tree lying on its side some distance away.

The tree suggested a direction, and he took it. There was no path, but beyond the margins of the forest the grass was not yet tall, and he easily made his way. It was once a large tree and had evidently long grown alone beyond the eves of the forest. Standing on the trunk passing over the creek, he could see far in all directions.

To the west he could see more hills. He determined to go there, and he began to make his way. As he went, his eyes darted from the wide trunk under his feet to the distant hills. But just before he stepped down on the far side, he had to stop. There was something large lying on the ground in front of him.

At first he thought it a shadow, but there was nothing to throw it and the sun was hidden behind the clouds. When he came close, he realized it was a hole. He walked to the edge, as close as he dared, and looked over the edge. He saw nothing. There was no bottom (although he did not step so close as to look straight down), and even the sides of the hole were dim.

He got down onto his hands and knees. He wanted to look farther into the hole, and he felt safer on all fours, less likely to stumble. He peered over the edge and looked into a featureless void that revealed nothing. His eyes tried to pierce the gloom, but there was nothing else to see. He felt an emptiness under him that made him shrink slowly back to the fallen tree, where he put his hands on the solid trunk and regained his bearings.

He had sweat running down his forehead. His heart was racing. But away now from that abyss, the murmuring of the leaves in the forest and the trickle of running water in the creek brought him back. Hearing these things and feeling the solid wood against his hand, the emptiness receded and he was able to stand again.

So he put his eyes on the horizon. He put the void behind, and he set off to the hills.

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