Nothing And No One At All

A fire watchman deep in the Allegheny Forest finds he may not be as alone as he thinks he is.

The sun didn't wake me, rather I woke it.

That's what Maggie would say on mornings such as this, ones that came too quickly from the night. Ones that were forced upon me because internally it was still night. Mornings I didn't want to come at all. I didn't sleep, yet somehow I still woke up.

I'm tasked as a fire watchman, guarding this part of the Allegheny Forest. Four months on and I'm in the final stretch. The leaves have changed, I notice. No one else may notice such a change between these warm months of nothing, but I do. It's subtle and nuanced, but it's there. I've lost count of the summers I've worked this forest, sometime after Maggie died. She loved this forest and I loved her. A hundred years with her wouldn't have been enough, but only twelve seemed extra cruel.

With mornings come the patrols. I grab my walkie from its charging port and my pack with essentials. I let the door click before making my way down the 142 steps. I guide myself through a path made not by me, but by watchmen before me and before them, too. My feet find the path before my eyes even bother to look down at the beaten ground. It's the only sound I hear.

There's something quite chilling about the silence of the forest. I sometimes thought that nothing happening meant I was nothing, too. That my presence was not real here in the Allegheny Forest.

The crunching of leaves and branches echo between me and the stilts of the firewatch tower, my current home. It towers over me, over us: the trees and ground and branches and grass and then me. It mocks the trees, who once thought they were the most mighty here. I scoff at their fragility. Trees so tall can so easily fall.

I think of Maggie in these moments: watching her take her final breath. The car in which we sat. The fire which engulfed us. Somehow I survived. But really, I didn't at all.

My eyes see it before my mind can catch up. It's this exhaustion playing tricks on me, I think. But no, it's not a trick.

A note. In the tree. No, an arrow shot into the tree. A note hanging by its head. Is this to me? The paper is lined and torn at the edge, the message written in a dull pencil, the letters jaggedy and thick.

Wither, wither says the tree.

Who is it that destroys me?

Wither, wither says the skies.

Your presence is your own demise.

I tear the note from its place, looking around at the forest as it surrounds me. I feel as though I am being watched yet the quiet tells me perhaps I am wrong. Delusional. Sleep deprived. Ranger Ashby doesn't pick me up for another week. I check my walkie, fully charged and on. I stuff the note in my pack and head back to the lookout tower.

I'm deep inside the over five-hundred-thousand acres of this forest. No one else is here, I tell myself. The thought is as comforting as it is terrifying.

I reach the final steps - Click.

I know that sound. It's the latch of my door... I know that sound because I already heard it as I left this morning.

I look behind me at the steps below even though the sound came from above. I am alone. It's just me, I say to myself as I make my way up to the landing.

It's as I left it, at least from what I can tell from the wide windows. I stare at the door handle and turn it quietly and quickly, as if that may keep me safe from whatever, or whoever, is inside. But instead, what meets me is nothing and no one at all. My unmade and unused bed. My lamp on the desk, still off. My small refrigerator hums to fill the silence. But there, do you hear that? A familiar tiny sound, vibrating from the desk - clack. I look down as my eyes meet a pencil having rolled off the desk. It's worn and used, and as I take silent steps to the desk, I find a notepad with small, careful words written down its lines.

Wither

With er

With her

I let out a sob but I'm not sure why. Someone was here.

I grab my pack from the floor and fill it with whatever is in reach. I make my way down the 142 steps and try to reach Ranger Ashby on the walkie. Static. He's new and young- must be fucking around or on a smoke break. I start to feel panic as my boots crunch and crash over leaves and - debris? Soot covers my boots and each step further into the forest and closer to the nearest road feels more and more unfamiliar. What is this? Has there been a fire here? Black trees stand half fallen while others crumble beneath my feet. I feel turned around. Which way is the road? Which way is my tower? How was there a fire? When?

I stagger, trying to steady my breathing when suddenly I back into - someone. I fall back and down into the crumbling trees.

I look up into his face- a ranger! Oh thank God. I try to find a trace of recognition between us but his dark eyes and wild beard tell me I don't know this man. He's older, his beard graying at the roots and wrinkles surrounding his eyes.

Ashby, his embroidered shirt reads. I gasp but look at an unfamiliar face, one that's much older than the one I knew.

"Was…was there a fire?" I ask, breathlessly.

"Yes," Ashby responds. "Several years ago. A car caught fire down by the cabins. What are you doing way out here? And who are you?"

"Nothing," I say. "And no one at all."

Katie Lilljedahl | 2021-04-11