The Heart of Nature

By Lauren Shaw

Nature is beautiful. The tall, green trees surrounding me stretched upward to form a fluttering ceiling. Light shone down in shafts, a stream laughed and tumbled over rocks. I wandered across the woodland scene, breathed in the fresh air, and finally felt at peace.

I’d been so tired—consumed by work, family, purpose. Finally the haze of gray depression became too suffocating, and I had to escape. To walk in nature, to see life from a new perspective. And it seemed to be working. I escaped the clutches of darkness just in time.

Choosing a walk in the woods to relax was a no-brainer. My childhood was filled with nature; I’ve been making connections with the earth since I can remember. Countless camping trips, hikes with my family, visiting the lake in the summer and exploring the woods surrounding my house. But when I reflected on those times they seemed so far away, lost in a forgotten time of innocence. A time when I still had wonder. I wanted to reclaim it, open myself back up to the energy of nature. So I set off and watched the trees stretch up, up, and around my small shadow.

As I passed by rocks and wild formations of brush, shallow indentations appeared in the soil around me. Small, slight, like the footprints of a child. I imagined ghost children, invisible save for the soft earthen markings of their feet, running through the forest and settling in the treetops under a pale silver moon. See, you are already becoming more creative and fluid with the world around you. There is nothing to escape anymore. Only the here and now.

In my path ahead stood a large oak tree. I had encountered many trees so far, but this one drew me in with magnetic appeal. It towered against the sky with branches reaching into the clouds. Emerald leaves crowded its limbs, occasionally drifting to the ground below when a breeze tempted them down. It looked wise, powerful, and omniscient, an ancient god of growth transplanted and reborn as an oak. I laughed at myself, catching the ridiculous nature of my thoughts. As a young boy my mother told me that some trees had power, that they were supernatural forces reincarnated and trapped behind massive bark trunks. Looking at this tree, I felt compelled to believe her. Obviously the forest was making me back into the superstitious little boy I longed to reconnect with. Tell me, magnificent tree, I thought flippantly, what insight should I carry back to my life outside your forest? What should I tell the world of your power?

A single phrase filled my mind. Go on and you will see. I was startled. Not because of the thought’s content but because it was not my own.

A single phrase filled my mind. Go on and you will see. I was startled. Not because of the thought’s content but because it was not my own. It was as if someone had planted the seed of an idea in my mind and in a split second the thought had grown and tried to disguise itself as my own. Go on and you will see. The idea wasn’t that unpleasant. It was not a command, but a suggestion. Filled with a willingness to venture further away from my mundane life, I followed. I am truly one with nature now.

Guided by a strangely compulsive force, I started to trace a path deeper into the forest. I enjoyed the breeze on my face, even though it seemed to have adopted a cunning chill I hadn’t noticed before. Was I really making the right decision to go off into the woods alone? Relax, I told myself, what are you so scared of? You know this world; it has been a part of you since childhood. You are safe in nature; it cannot hurt you.

A sudden drop in the path startled me, and I tumbled to the ground, catching myself with my hands on a patch of grass. Instead of a soft landing, I felt a stinging pain as soon as my hands made contact with the ground. Turning them over, I discovered to my horror that they had been sliced in long, jagged stripes. The tiny green blades had torn lines of blood into my soft flesh, stinging, angry, and red. I had never known simple grass to be so destructive, so cruel.

You need to clean them, the voice in my head claimed, and I moved in anguish, trudging along until I reached a small pool of stagnant water. I stepped into the soil around the pool, dropping my hands into its cool shallows. Crouching down, I stared up at the clouds above and watched them race across the sky as if they were desperately fleeing from some larger force.

Satisfied as the stinging in my hands subsided, I pulled them out of the water and tried to step backwards— but stopped halfway. I couldn’t move. The ground and dark silt of the pool were holding me down, holding me around the ankles in its depths. The more I struggled to step out, the more I sank. Quicksand. Sand quickly grabbing, pulling, drawing me down into dark depths. Asleep underground. Breathing in dirt, lungs filled with grainy mud. Lost. How can I go on and find out the message of the tree? You must go on, said the tree. Go on and see; you must you must you must.

Release. The sand seemed to let go, surrendering its grip suddenly and completely. I took the chance nature had given me and hurriedly stepped out of the grip of the pool.

You are not ready yet. One more path to take, one more face to meet. Go on and you will see.

Feet covered in black sludge. No memory of why I’d taken on this trek. Reclaiming…someone? Lost in time, my younger self? He did not matter anymore, all that mattered was finding the tree.

Sun sinking below the hills, drowning in darkness, last breaths of red light bathing treetops. Even the sun cannot survive here. The tree the tree the tree. The tree. The tree. The tre—

The tree. There it was, the same but different. A mass of twisted, confusing branches. A near twin to the ancient oak, but this tree was dark and gnarled,

not green and full of life.

I had arrived. What should I do? I knew this was my final destination, but I didn’t know why.

Come inside, it whispered, scratchy and low. Come and join with nature. Step by step, I moved closer. There was a thin crack in the dark wood of the trunk, tracing its way to the limbs above. What’s inside? What’s inside? I reached out curious hands and pried back the bark, splitting the crack in the tree and revealing its insides.

Deep horror coursed through my veins, freezing my blood and muscles. A scream died in my throat. It was a body. Not a skeleton of some forgotten soul—no, far worse—the tree itself was a body, and I had exposed its internal organs. Gnarled wooden bones of a rib cage, twisted roots that formed intestines, grotesque fungus grew into a spine. Vines tangled into ligaments, seedpods inhaled as lungs, and moss breathed as pores on the tree’s outer bark-like skin. It was alive, in the most chilling way a human mind could imagine. Looking to the left-center of the tree, I noticed a large hollow space. Where is it, I pondered through a haze of terror. Where is the heart?

A thought began to creep its way into my head. It’s the only way. I have to. How else could I become the true heart of nature? Slowly, I stepped into the opening, into the crevice, and pulled the bark-skin back into place.

It was so dark. All-consuming blackness, filling every orifice, never ending and blinding. The silence rang in my ears, a sour, consistent vibrato of waiting, waiting for something to happen. Suddenly, I felt it. A growing, stretching, fusing. My arms jolted up, joining with branches, becoming new limbs. Feet trapped by roots below, binding them in place. Hair pulled to the back of the tree trunk, becoming new connections to the trailing vines. Trapped, melding with the dark air and smell of earthy wood. Beating, beating as one with the tree.

A crawling, tickling sensation began at the back of my neck. Panic arose when the feeling multiplied, continued on page 51 spreading and consuming my form: the feeling of insects burrowing into the pores, dancing across my skin, falling to my feet. They filled my mouth and eyes— or was it just the darkness and silence weighing down on me? Maggots, flesh-eaters, skin-crawlers. This is not a living body; this is a body of decomposition. Branches dead, body dead, and I have become a part of the rot. I will rot away too, never to be found. I will be the poor soul trapped in the tree, a body within a body. I have not escaped the darkness; it has just followed me in the form of decay. Now I cannot cry for help or see the sun or hear the stream laugh, but I know it is laughing now, laughing at my entrapment from afar. I thought I had escaped the darkness of my life outside the forest, but I was wrong— it had followed me, followed me in the form of festering, death, the depths of soil and creeping undergrowth. I just wanted to reclaim my wonder, my love of life…where is that child I was looking for in myself, in the woods? Lost, he is lost. Help, someone, help, help, help—

The voice slid its tendrils into my ear, a centipede twisting inside my mind. You thought this would be an escape. A reclaiming of innocence. Now there is no help, no way out. You have been reclaimed. Nature will not surrender what is consumed, and when something enters it already decaying, it takes advantage. You belong to us now.

I tried to move my arms, shake my head, pound on the rib cage holding me in place. But I was trapped. Why? My mind cried in agony. What do you want from me? I thought you had a message for me, a message to carry to the world!

Yes. The tree’s answer slithered inside my brain, implanting its message, a futile warning. It was hummed by the insects burrowing into my pores, it reverberated against damp tissue walls of the tree, it echoed in the pulse of organs. Nature is terrifying.