She Writes and Pages Catch Flame

Something for the Train Ride

There is a man who lives in the woods, whose smoke from his fire billows out past the tallest trees, whose laugh rattles the leaves.  When this man cries, the skies pour rain.  In his angriest moments the forest booms with thunder and lightening shatters the stark dark night sky.  He can grant wishes and forgive sins.  He does not call these sins or wishes, but situations, circumstances, and the future. Some call this man the devil, other call him God.

You are not to find this man unless you are meant to find this man.  People have wandered the woods for weeks on end searching and searching, but they always find only the edges of the forest and return starving and hysterical.  The trees whisper secrets about their neighbors at night.

Paul, a man living in the quaint New England town, believes it is his turn to find this man.  Paul pushed numbers for work, that’s what he told anyone whenever they asked what he did for a living.  Paul was born out of wedlock, and his maternal grandparents resented his father for it, even though he eventually married his mother.  Paul didn’t learn to swim until he was twelve and as an adult he still never really liked water.  His favorite color was green and he read war stories and pretended to understand what they were about.  But if you’ve never been to war, you never really understand.

He climbs out of the window of the bedroom of his mistress, and slowly eases his way back home.  His wife is already fast asleep.  Only the eldest child had noticed Paul didn’t return home on time that night.  Paul had begun to come home later and later.  Work was busy…

Work wasn’t busy, in fact it was the opposite.  Paul was allowed to leave early most days, they hadn’t a need for his services for the hours that were previously required.  He wasn’t about to loose his job, there was just a lull in the economy.  He spent half his days pushing numbers and the other half of his day keeping secrets.  Paul met someone.

This fair skinned dame had bright blue eyes that Paul just melted over.  He couldn’t look away, he couldn’t stop thinking of her.  Her name was Rose, how appropriate.  She was young, not too young, but young enough.  She was still too impressionable for her own good, but she’d spit fire at you if you dare say she was impressionable. Her drum beat it’s own beat.  Paul had never met anyone like Rose before, and something as simple as her fingertips on his skin was electrifying. He’d never felt that with his wife.

Rose was born the last child of three to a father that was a banker and a mother that was a school teacher.  She had two older brothers, none of them ever seemed to get along, until their mother’s death.  Their father couldn’t bare the loss of his wife so the children did all the could to take care of him and help him muster the courage and will to survive. It was easier said than done and Rose still resented her brothers for years of torture and rejection.  She was always the odd man out, simply because she wasn’t a man. 

Paul’s wife was lonely, with or without Paul, with or without their young, beautiful children that she wished she’d never had.  Her name was Abigail.  The only man she ever loved was her father, who became ill while she was still far too young to understand death.  Coincidentally, she was also the only thing her father ever loved, it caused a lifelong feud between Abigail and her mother.  It made no sense twenty years later, when they were fighting for the love of a dead man, but they were still fighting.

Abigail was vapid.  She dreamed in black and white, and never really remembered her dreams when she woke in the morning.  Her middle name was Mary. Her father had been an attorney and her mother stayed at home and painted.  When she was younger, Abigail used to pose for her mother; she sat still for hours.  Her mother could never paint her face right.

Paul and Abigail met too young, when love didn’t seem as fleeting as it sometimes is.  They thought they were in love, but the fact was they were both a little scared and they were both a little desperate.  They feared dying alone and the idea of a family, comfort, protection, it was alluring.  Their family was falling apart long before Paul began his affair, but Abigail would have just died if she ever found out.

She was raised Catholic, a divorce would have been out of the question.  Her family didn’t do things that way.  She was your average god-fearing Christian, but she stopped going to church when her children were old enough to loudly complain how bored they were and is disrupted mass.  Sometimes when she was out on afternoon walks alone, she’d creep into the empty church, kneel down in a pew and pray.  Praying was never easy for her though.  No matter how much she believe in god, she never quite understood how to talk to him.  Abigail didn’t believe the myths about the man in the woods.  No such man could exist.  Such a notion was blasphemous. 

The yellow leaves of autumn were stark in contrast against the grey-blue clouds.  The clouds were ominous, they whispered rain when they wanted to shout it, but they shouted rain when it finally came pouring down, and it always came pouring down.  The sun rose in the east and set in the west and say high in the sky in the middle of the day, when the clouds weren’t in the way.

Paul went out walking one afternoon, a slow steady pace, one foot in front of the other, repeated over and over again. The leaves creaked and squeaked beneath his feet, their last cry before they were dead forever.  He paid no attention to the noise, only the thoughts running through his brain.  Rose was going to tell, she swore she would tell.

“Leave her,” she said just the night before.

“It’s not that easy.”

“It’s not that hard.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“The hell I wouldn’t, I’ve had to walk away before to. Listen I would walk away if I could, but I can’t walk away from you and you won’t walk away from me. Leave her. I’ll tell, I swear I’ll tell.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would.”  She said this, but she didn’t really intend on it.  She was drunk and in love, and incredibly frustrated with the nature of their relationship.  Who really would have felt different?

But the children, Paul thought.  Paul should have thought about that long before he was months into an affair he couldn’t walk away from.  His marriage was loveless, but he had far too much pride in his own family and public image.  He was selfish to say the least, wanted to have his cake and cookies and eat it all.

He knew his wife pretended her best to be a God fearing catholic woman, where as divorce would never be a choice.  And nothing would ever be as easy as divorce anyway, which is not to say that it is easy.  It seemed like an easier option that trying to make it work.   How do you stay with someone you don’t love anymore?  Paul thought to himself.

His walk brought him to the edge of the forest.  His family had passed by and through many times, he rarely ventured in alone.  He’d heard plenty of stories about the mystery of the man in the woods, and for whatever reason, that day he was drawn into the woods.

The leaves crunched and cracked beneath his feet.  Winter’s cool breeze was beginning to blow, nipping at the tips of ears and noses.  Paul, someone seemed to call in a man’s voice.  He turned about to face wherever he thought the noise was coming from, but nothing.  It sounded again, behind him, further into the forest.  He squinted and looked as far as his eyes could see, still nothing.  He feels compelled in a certain direction for no real reason, slightly off the beaten path.  The smell of a fire.  He believes he faintly sees smoke toppling over the trees, but his eyes have been known to play tricks on him.

Paul comes to a clearing, with two stumps posing as seats, positioned perfectly across from each other, a roaring fire in-between. The flames dance red and yellow and orange, also the colors of the season.  For moments Paul is just mesmerized by the flames, the way in which they twist and turn and break off and crackle.  They fully engulfed the logs beneath, but are contained to only those logs and not the leaves and the trees and the rest of the forest.

A short man appears, shadowed by a hooded jacket. Paul is startled and can’t speak.  The man motions for him to sit, he responds quickly and subordinately.  Paul, up until recently, had never been one to break the rules.  He sits.  The stump is surprisingly comfortable, as the fire roars between him and the mysterious man.

“Paul,” the man says.

“But how do you know my name?”

“You shouldn’t worry about the inane information I know of you, such as your name.  I know far more than your name.”

“Yeah, like what?”  Paul said in a wise tone.

“I know about your affair.”  The man removes his hood, there’s a knot in Paul’s throat.  She must have told him, he couldn’t just know this information.   The man’s skin was pale, his face full or wrinkles and other marks of old age.  There is a scar from a cut below his right eye.  His face is mostly round in shape, although his nose is a bit sharp.  Paul doesn’t stare long enough to figure out the color of this man’s eyes.  They are a pale blue.

“So you’re him?”  Paul asks, implying that “him” is the man who lives in the woods.  The man who can grant wishes and forgive sins.

“So that’s what they call me now?”  He says softly, a bit of a laugh follows.  His voice is soothing, and not as gruff as Paul expected from the hooded figure that first appeared.

“You forgive sins?”  Paul asks, wondering if he sounds as desperate as he feels.

“I don’t like to call them sins.  But I’ve been known to forgive a few in my time.  Sonny boy, I don’t like to call them sins, and I don’t like to call it forgiveness either.  I can change your future, based on your past, which also allows me in a way to grant wishes.  If you wish for your future to be different, I might be able to help with that.”

“How do you know of the affair?”

“That information is not privy to you. I do not need to explain myself.”

“She told you,” Paul stood up, the man remained seated.  It was common for the townsfolk that found him to be surprised, sometimes outraged at the information he knew.  But he never told a single soul why or how he knew the information he did.  Most were convinced he had an informant, people spread dirty laundry around town like wild fire.  Everyone knew everything about everyone else.  It just happened that way.

“No one told me anything, and how I know this information isn’t up for discussion.  You obviously want to change things or keep this affair quiet, am I right?”

“Yes. No one can find out, my wife will leave me.”

“Maybe you should have thought about that.”

“Look, I don’t need you to lecture me.”  Paul knew his mistakes and he knew them well. He had just chosen until recently to ignore the ill nature of the things he was doing.

“Then maybe you don’t need my help either.”  The man stood up at this point.  He only wanted to help Paul, thought he was an honest man that did a bad thing. “You can choose to have my help or not.  But once you decide you want my help, you must do as I say.  I can change your future, but there are consequences for that too.”  As soon as Paul decided to take the man’s help, his future would be set in stone in one way or another, where as if he chose to figure things out himself his future could have any number of outcomes.

“I’m sorry.” Paul retreated to his seat, the man followed his lead.  “I don’t know how it started, I don’t know how to end it.  She’s going to tell everyone, she is.  I need your help, I do.”

“You have a choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“You make it work with your wife, or you leave town with your mistress. You have to be honest though, tell your wife why you’re leaving, or tell her that you had an affair and want to fix things with her.”

“I can’t leave town, my children…but I can’t tell me wife.  I’ll never be able to tell her.”

“So you’ve made your choice?”

“It isn’t as easy as that.  I have to pay for Rose to leave town, or she’ll tell.  And who knows, she may tell anyway.  What if I continue the affair?”

“That, my friend, comes at the cost of one of the lives of your children.”

Paul didn’t understand what was happening or what sort of agreement he was getting himself into.  “I don’t understand.”

“You have to make things work with your wife, or one of your children will die. You can choose which one.”

Paul is outraged at this thought.  “Choose?  You mean I can choose which of my children lives or dies, like I’m God or something?  Are you God? Is this a joke?  What kind of man are you?  Forcing me to fix my marriage or risk losing one of my children?”

“Paul, you made your choice, these are just the solutions I am offering you to your problem.”

“It’s not much of a solution.”  Paul crosses his arms and averts his eyes.  Such strong body language, if he were four years old.

“Tell me about your family.”

“My family? Why? Shouldn’t you know?”

“I want to hear from you, I want to know how you feel about them.”

“I love my family, my children mean the world to me.  I never dreamed of being a bad father or doing anything to hurt them.” Paul slowly begins to realize just how selfish he has been.  He wishes he could sacrifice himself, but that is not an option. “My son is wonderful with blue eyes and full he’s of life.  My baby girl has the heart of an angel.  I just want them both to live long after me.  I could never bare burying my own children. Do you have children?”

“No.  I do not.”

“You’d never understand what it means to be a parent until you are actually a parent.”

“I’ve been told.”  The man is bored with Paul’s responses.  He appears to love his children fairly equally at this point, but the man knows better of this, he knows one child holds a bit more of his heart.

“I know my son is going to grow up to be something wonderful.  He’s smart and athletic, and he takes care of his mother and sister when I’m out of the house. He’s going to be a good man.  A better man than me.  I want to be around to see that.  I can’t continue my affair, I don’t love her.” Paul had just made his choice and he didn’t even realize it.

“Paul, there is hope, and you can fix this.  She’ll leave town, I promise you that.  Once you end the affair there’s nothing left for her here anymore anyway.  She doesn’t even love you like she thinks she does, she’s quite young and disillusioned.”  There is nothing left for the man and Paul to discuss at this point.   The man dismisses Paul and puts out the fire.  Paul sits on the stump for an hour, trying to understand what just happened, before he realizes it’s dark out and he’s going to have trouble finding his way home.

Weeks pass before Paul can really decide what to do, he still is uncertain of the circumstances.  He walked into the woods at least five times to the exact spot where he swore he met the man and the weren’t any stump, there wasn’t even any kind of clearing.  He believes he is some how mistaken and will eventually find their meeting grounds again.  He never does.

“Rose, I bought you a train ticket.”  He says to her one night as he buttons his shirt and pulls his pants off the floor.

“You could have told me before I took my clothes off for you.”

“Listen, I’ve got too much to lose.”

“You’ve always had too much to lose, you didn’t used to care.”

“So you’re upset with me for wanting to be an honest man?”

“I’m upset with you for dragging me into this mess in the first place.  Paul, I’ll gladly leave, your wife can have you.  You’re a coward anyway.”  Paul almost raised his hand to Rose.  He’d never hit a woman though.  But he couldn’t bare being thought of a coward.  He calms his own nerves by telling himself that he’s not a coward because a coward would get a divorce and he’s going to fight to fix things.  The only thing left now was to tell his wife.

Paul crept home, late as usual.  He thought the kids were sleeping, his wife was awake, sitting in the arm chair facing the window in their bedroom.  Her attention was focused, she was enthralled with whatever words lay on the pages before her eyes.  Paul stood in the doorway, silent, wondering if he could find words so captivating.  Or at least words compelling enough to gain forgiveness.  He didn’t know where to start.  He stood their for ten minutes before she even noticed him, and he was then just as lost in thought as she had been when he arrived.

“Paul!”  She was startled, as well as he.  “You scared me, I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I’m sorry love,” he said and began walking towards her.  He kissed her on the forehead and then bent down to talk to her.  “I have something to tell you.”  What neither of them knew was that their daughter Amy, had crept just a few inches before their doorway and was about to listen in.

“What is it honey?”  Paul had never been good at breaking bad news or having serious conversations, in fact he avoided it at all costs.  When Abigail was first pregnant and he wasn’t quite ready for a child he went on a week long hunting trip just to postpone actually talking about it.

“I’ve been having an affair.”  It was as simple as that but he couldn’t look at her.  She quickly rose to her feet.

“What do you mean?”  She was angry, with reason, and her voice was a tone he’d never heard before.

“I’m sorry.”

“Who is she?”

“That isn’t important.”

“Who is she?”

“It’s over.”

“We’re over.”  Amy still quiet in the hallway couldn’t believe what she was overhearing.  She couldn’t bare the thought of her parents splitting.  How would she choose?  Would someone choose for her?  What happens to children when parents split up?   She ran into her brothers room to wake him up and tell him.

“We can fix this.”  Paul said, now rising to his feet, trying to keep his wife in the room so that they could talk about things.

“No.  We can’t.  I’ve been wanting to leave you for a long time and now I finally have a reason.”  It was the last thing Paul had expected to hear.  He felt like he got shot in the stomach.  He didn’t know what to say.  There was really nothing he could say.

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” he grabbed a pillow and catatonically walked to the living room.  He didn’t sleep at all that night, nor did Amy, Abigail or Rose.  Paul’s son slept just fine after he assure his sister that everything would be all right, and asked her to turn the light out and go back to bed.

Rose’s train was leaving at noon.  Paul had packed a small bag of things that belonged to her that he’d kept at the office.  It was a few books and some journals of her writings.  He hadn’t any need to keep that sort of stuff around, and she had asked for it back.  When Amy saw her father packing the bag she thought he was leaving too.  She followed him to the train station.

Paul met Rose on the platform, they embraced, kissed, and tried to muster up whatever goodbye they had left in them.  The whistle sounded in the distance.  Amy had positioned herself behind a pillar so that she could watch her father and watch for the train.  She had to stop him, there had to be something she could do.  The train grew closer. Her heart began to beat harder, she was nervous, running out of ideas, she didn’t even know what to say to him.

“Dad you can’t leave!”  She yelled as she ran out from behind the pillar.  She reached the edge of the platform and turned to look at him.  “You have to make it work with mom.”  She jumped in front of the train.

Paul fell to his knees.  On lookers were astonished, unsure of what they just witnessed.  Paul didn’t understand, he was honest, he was stopping the affair.  But his wife was leaving him, which meant that Paul didn’t fix things with his wife.  The price to pay for his failed marriage was the life of one of his children.  He’d given his son more praise than his daughter, which lead the man to believe he loved his son more.  The man visited Amy in a dream, told her to stop her father, to stop the train.  Paul wasn’t leaving though, only bringing Rose something for the train ride, had he not done that one last kind gesture, his daughter would not have followed him.

Paul died from exposure that winter, wandering the woods trying to find that man.  He wanted to change things, wanted something other than the hand he was dealt.  Had he found the man, the man would have told him the hand he was dealt was the hand he chose.  Paul could have handled things himself but in his desperation believed he needed a wish to be granted to fix things, and you know what they say, be careful what you wish for.