The Man On The Run

He was walking along a hiking trail one warm afternoon clearing his mind. His thoughts echoed throughout the woods and he felt the weight of them lifting from his soul as they temporarily became lost. He knew that eventually they would come back, but he didn’t seem to care. The moment, was here and now, and he used this time to let go of the stress. It was beautiful, nature made its lovely sounds as if to say to him “welcome child”, and the birds were invisible, chirping up in the trees, the soft wind blowing through the leaves and caressing his ears with a gentle swiftness, the rays of sunshine barely peeking past openings between the leaves. In the distance, he could hear the slowly increasing sound of a flowing river. He approached it and sat at the edge, listening intently to the running water, its swishing and swooshing. He drank from it, and washed his face. He pulled out some dirty clothes from his backpack and washed them intensively in the water. He took out his hunting knife, which was stained with dried blood and thoroughly washed it as well. He noted on the other side that there were two squirrels who were playing rough with one another, and darting quickly from one base of a tree to another, he smiled at the sight. But the slightest disturbance immediately brought him to his feet. He heard something far behind him that got him nervous, which developed into a cold sweat running down his face. He listened carefully, he could hear the crunching of leaves and talking far off in the distance, but it was approaching him. It was a man and a woman, from what he could hear, they may have been in their late 20’s or early 30’s. He quickly packed up his clothes, looking at one of his dirty shirts before placing it back in his bag, he noticed that the blood had not come off. He hurriedly scoured the site for anything he might have forgotten, or for any signs that he may have left that he was there. The site was clean, and he looked in front of him to see the uncertainty through the trees which would guarantee his cover. He looked behind him, and saw the faint path which had already been walked on leading right to him, where the voices were still approaching from. He thought for a second, “perhaps one last time…” as he grasped the hunting knife in his pocket. And as the voices approached and the curse of death loomed before them all, a swift wind picked up the plot and laid it out before him, as if to say “no, run”, and he did so. Dropping the bloodied knife on the forest floor, he ran up ahead, where the path was not clearly laid out, and where twigs and branches riddled every turn. The forest provided refugee to the man who was on the run. But the trees had witnessed what he had done, and for that, he had barely lived through another painful month.