The Forest of Eden

For those with the thirst for adventure and exploration, the call of nature is hard to ignore. Humans are a part of nature, and women are humans-contrary to what some are taught to believe.

One morning, Eden goes on a hike in search of some peace and quiet, nothing more. The trail took her far away from the city from which she came. Far away from peering eyes, catcalling mouths, impatient hands, and ugly words.

There was none of that here. The only eyes and mouths belonged to Eden and the animals who would scatter as soon as she crossed their path. Some birds, a couple of squirrels, a snake. Eden even caught a glimpse of a snow white tail as a doe bounded away from her in fear, disappearing from sight, into the deep forest like an apparition.

The only hands and words belonged to Eden.

The weather was perfect, too. As she cautiously crossed a small stream, Eden told herself there wasn’t a better day she could’ve picked to go on this hike.

Mother Nature made a world of pure things, but none of those things are simplistic. Everything’s complex, one ring in the spiral of a tree trunk. Many things still happen with no explanation, no rhyme or reason.

Eden would be found downstream, body crumpled behind a crowd of thistles, placed there with a carelessness only another human could have. There she would lay to be gazed upon by the trees and the doe who could sense the danger she could not.

She would become a spectacle in the news for people to gossip about over the pot of coffee in office break rooms. Something for suburban mothers who use true crime as a distraction from their dead-end lives to discuss while they wait for their kids to come home from school. Eden wasn’t any more a person than the rocks and twigs she hiked upon. Objectified by the person who was uncaring enough to discard her like compost, only to be objectified by bored strangers who wanted to give the illusion of caring.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

| Elena Haley