Dawn
They arrive in the dead of the night, the moonless sky, an inky black dotted with flecks of dust. The thin air, damp, crisp and heavy with the sweet scent of decay. Marta watches quietly, as her son, Arron, hastily sets up the small tent underneath the wavering light of a lone flashlight hanging precariously from a small, twisted branch. She could see no more than a few feet in any given direction. Leaves the color of flame are scattered beneath her feet, and she is surrounded by the faint silhouettes of trees.
The last stake is driven into the soft ground, and they began to unpack. Arron pulls a sleeping bag from the car, along with several heavy blankets, while she grabs the two pillows. They place them in the tent, and proceed to make ready for a night’s sleep. He makes a warm comfortable bed for his mother, and from the remaining blankets, fashioned a slightly less than pleasant bed for himself.
“Goodnight”, she said, as he climbed into his bed and fell fast asleep.
Marta, unable to sleep, fills with anticipation as she lies awake imagining what surprises await her, once the curtain of darkness lifts.
***
Arron had always been a good son, and when he overheard her on the phone one night, crying as she spoke about how she had grown tired of the old neighborhood and of all of its problems that ran back decades. The crime, the graffiti, the drugs all of it’s ugliness. How she had never understood how a community could just turn on itself, but it did and there was nothing that could be done. She wondered what it was like outside of the neighborhood, outside of the city, out of torturous heat and unwelcoming desert in which she lived. If she could just get away even if it were only for a day or two, and wondering how she could ever possibly save enough to go. It was then, at that very moment, Arron knew what needed to do.
***
She awakes just before dawn, but does not get up immediately. Instead, she waits… and listens. There is nothing but the thundering silence. As the sun begins to rise she can hear a faint chorus of birds growing louder, and the sharp crack of wood from a misplaced step of some larger creature, perhaps a deer or an elk. The more she hears the more restless she became, so ever so carefully and quietly, she climbs from underneath the layers of blanket and out of the sleeping bag, making sure not to wake her son. She slowly pulls the zipper that is closing the tent off to the frosty cold of the early morning air, and as she does she feels the soft glow of the morning sun rushing in and falling upon her face. It is not like she hadn’t felt the sun before, but this is different somehow. It feels new, and she feels new, and it is beautiful beyond words. With her last foot out of the tent, she zips it shut, then turns to the sky. It is clear and blue, not the muddy brown like back home, and the only clouds are the lazy ones that are nestled along the snow capped peaks that lie ahead. Their campsite is surrounded on three sides by green pines and tall, white aspens with leaves the color of brilliant yellow, and when the wind blows they spin feverishly, and flutter like a thousand prayer flags, each time a few taking flight. Off in the distance, she hears the distinct “caws” of ravens, occasionally interrupted by the bugling of elk, a sound unfamiliar to her, and the sound of the breeze as it dances its way across the tops of the trees.
In that moment she finds happiness. The tormenting desert, that tumor of a city, and the neighborhood that had fallen apart all seems a world away. It is all that she wants, a moment of peace and to know that the world was still good.
That night she sleeps motionless and hard.
c2008 Alice M. Vinson
