Paths

There was this path a little ways from school. My school was near a forest, you see. There were all these little twists and turns and hidden nooks if you really put your ear to the ground. This one was nestled just a little ways away from the school library, by a narrow access road that doesn’t really want to be used. It’s marked by a tall stone archway. You can’t miss it, but you would sure want to. 

We had gone there at night—-the five of us. Me and a few other people I knew. It was one of those whims of youth—-we had been looking for a graveyard, rumored to be hidden up the hill somewhere. Instead, we found the path. It was a winding dirt road littered with rocks and overgrown weeds, spiraling down into the dark.
In hindsight, I think it was a little foolish. Nothing like stupid kids dying in the dark—a timeless cliche. There are  B-grade horror movies with less predictable intros than this. But we proceeded anyway because if not us dying, then who?

I trudged ahead, feeling the heavy leaves crunching beneath my feet. We had our lights up, but to little effect. The night was thick and humid. Our little lights barely reached five feet in front of us. Just enough to keep us from falling off the path down the hill. Not so much to keep my eyes from playing tricks on me. Round each bend I thought I could see a pale figure. Foolhardiness and the knife in my pocket was the only thing that kept me still moving forward.
In spite of the lack of maintenance and the tangle of weeds spilling in from the sides, you could still tell the path was man made. The path cut wide enough for people to pass and was bordered with little colorful flags which felt out of place in a dark place such as that. It seemed like something that would have been placed for children. Although, I can’t imagine what sort of children would willingly walk into a place like that.
Every now and then, there would be a sign amidst the flags.
“Look deep into nature & you will understand everything better”- Albert Einstein, said one.

"What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?" —E.M. Forster said another. 

They read with a cruel irony that was befitting of such a place. It occurred to me then that maybe someone somewhere could have been playing a very bad joke. This felt confirmed as I reached the bottom of the hill. 

There was one last sign as we got down there. 

"Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder" E.B.White, it said.  And what a wonder there was. 

A small circular clearing bordered by little colorful flags. At its center was a tall twisted tree, looming gnarled with creeping vines and heavy roots—you know, standard stuff. But it was behind this tree that what disturbed me.

A concrete construct layered with rows of pipe and old rebar.  It looked almost like a cage. However as we shined a light through the bars, there was nothing. Maybe some shattered glass and cracked bits of stone, but other than that, there was truly nothing.
And so we waited, knocking against wood, listening for anything. But there was just silence.  At one point I saw something standing by a tree, but it was just a little sign. 

Nothing happened. Eventually we all walked out of there. Unscathed and untouched but, for the most part, a little sad. 

I think it speaks a lot about the way we fill in the gaps in our brains when we’re disappointed when we  don't die. I think if I think hard enough, I can rationalize that those white spots in the dark were just tricks of the light. There really was nothing on that trail or in that cage. But we wanted there to be. We need there to be, if only to make sense of that funny feeling.
I think if we stayed in that clearing for long enough, that knife in my pocket might have found some use. There would be stories then. Real ones. Not just intangible ideas just floating around in the dark. There would be monsters one way or the other.