enjoy the analysis and suggested symbolisms.
My feet walked along a well-tread path, arid and dusty as it begged for moisture. I frequented this path often at night, taking comfort in the anonymity of the dark and those who I encountered along it.
One does not usually meet others along the path under the midnight heat, but on this night an uncommon occurrence stood before me as a vehicle sat blocking my passage. Its mangled body idled gruffly under the moonlight and it appeared the vehicle had just survived a vicious accident as several individuals lay scattered on the trail.
The vehicle, dented and barely holding itself together, roared away at the hands of its indifferent driver, nameless and faceless. Of those who had been vaulted from its clutches, all had managed to arise and walk but one. A boy sat hunched over in a pothole large enough to encompass his small frame. I walked slowly towards him, scanning the steaming debris and broken glass that glistened under the hazed glow of the night.
I approached the boy under the watchful eye of those survivors that kept their distance. The enormity of the situation appeared to have overwhelmed them as one by one they walked off, separating themselves from the severity of the boy's condition.
I knelt beside the boy with calm reserve as he was without sound, so engrossed in shock that he did not even blink or acknowledge the presence of another right before him. With his hood tight around his face, the boy's eyes maintained a forward stare, empty of thought and purpose. I moved directly in front of him and looked him over for injuries. My hands reached for the hood and slipped it back down his neck, revealing a massive gouge on top of his head, sitting atop his right eye.
What appeared to be an absence of flesh was really a brutal dent in his skull, resulting in a large amount of blood being spilled down the entire right side of his body. The blood cascaded from the wound down over his ear, had covered his neck and was soaked into the collar of his shirt.
I decided to do what I could to keep him lucid and alive until help could be found. To my surprise, the bolstered himself and rose up from the pothole. I steadied him with my hands as he began to move his feet and shuffle out and away from the crash site. While it was remarkable, I was sure someone in his condition need not walk so much, even though it was clear there was a driving force within this boy that was could not be adequately reflected through his expression.
I ushered him off the path for a period of rest, finding an abandoned courtyard, broken and corroded by years of neglect. I sat with him on my lap, holding his hands and praying that help would come soon. The wound had long coagulated, adorning the right side of his face in thick, crusted blood. Still, despite bearing this horrendous gouge, he lived, breathing and perceiving what comfort I could give him.
In the dull glow of dusk, the gray sky opened and released its waters on the dry trail and those treading upon it. I arose, helping the boy to his feet as I raised a hand to keep the falling drops from aggravating his dried wound. He remained silent but responded to every supportive gesture I made as I guided him to again walk down the trail in search of refuge from the waters.
The trail inclined slightly as it approached a grove of trees, in which was nestled a small cottage. The cottage, surrounded by high-reaching oak trees that basked the home in bucolic comfort, gave one the impression that it had existed forever, flawlessly kept in its quiescent state.
I had been to this place before, though I had been alone on my previous visit. This place, the cottage and its surroundings were no ordinary place. When last there, I was made aware that this was a house where memories of past events played themselves out in real life, seemingly free of danger but still a harrowing phenomenon to behold when it occurred as their frequency and recurrence were unpredictable.
The cottage was procured by a man and his wife, older in age and exuding an air of experience that I knew would lend itself useful to the boy and myself given our predicament. As our feet crossed the threshold, they were there to welcome us with calm, close-mouthed smiles that matched the kindness and wisdom in their eyes. They looked at me and at the boy as they ushered us inside to their kitchen, their expressions unchanged as they looked over his dented, bloody head.
Just as the man and his wife were opening their mouths to speak, I caught out of the corner of my eye, a figure walking up the trail to the cottage. I turned my eyes and head from the man and his wife to see in full a bearded man, traipsing up the lane in his purposed and stuttered walk that set within me a fear that gripped my bones. His eyes, burning with an odious ire, refused to flinch from their set gaze. In his left hand, the bearded man gripped a handgun in his bloodless knuckles.
It was in this moment, in the precious ephemeral seconds between my seeing the bearded man and his arrival past the threshold, that the phenomenon revealed itself in understanding. This was a past memory of the man and his wife. It had happened before, it belonged to them alone and two individuals stood in the kitchen that shifted the balance of a peaceful conclusion.
The boy and myself were not supposed to be there and could prove to be a catalyst for something disastrous. I gathered the boy in my arms and flung myself past the man and his wife, towards the stairs. The man and his wife, in their unchanged stoicism, watched my flight. As my sweeping gaze caught their eyes, they rendered unto me an understanding of the situation.
In this memory, the bearded man was including them in a game he liked to play. He would walk into the house and hold them at gunpoint, forcing them to stare down the barrel of his gun and rage. All three would hold this position in a motionless stupor. The game was only that if the man or his wife, or anyone in the cottage, made a sound or flinched, the bearded man was justified in firing upon all residents, leaving the house with the only beating heart.
In the corner of the cottage's basement we sat, myself wide-eyed and cold with panicked sweat. I again sat with the boy in my lap; my arms around him and gripping his hands with my own. The bearded man had entered and I could perceive that the man and his wife were already at his mercy.
I held my breath as the game began, resting my cheek on the boy's tender head while I tightened my grip around his limp hands. I closed my eyes and whispered into his ear a desperate plea, "Please. Please be quiet. He will hurt us."
