Ramble

Walking down the forest path, we kept moving, never stopping, always moving, for fear of the forest engulfing us. The drone of the insects was a living, throbbing entity. Yet it wasn’t quite the fear which kept us from halting. We were caught in a frenzy of inertia; we couldn’t stop. Our feet kept carrying us until we could walk no more. As long as we didn’t stop, we wouldn’t have to acknowledge the reality of the moss-covered trees, the rolling slope that fell away from their feet, or even the road itself, unused, unpopulated. There were tyre tracks, that had bared the muddy foundation of the roads, but insects were breeding in those puddles, and we walked past, and they remained undisturbed. What are civilization, and custom and manners to this inhumane forest? What do clothes or food mean to it? What does it matter to it, whether we’re there? We only need to keep walking.

There was this peculiar sanctity, yet an unholy haunting in the atmosphere which we couldn’t ignore. It wasn’t sacred, it wasn’t profane. Even places where humans had dabbled with the inherent obtuseness of the forest were infused with a sort of nothingness, or a feeling too strange to be described. There were vermillion flags, nestled in the cleavage of the mountain, and one or two pictures of Hindu deities that were perched on a rock shelf. In spite of this intrusion, the place retained its obstinate, impenetrable aura, and the flags didn’t flutter, and the pictures lay, where nobody has ever laid his eyes. A thin, very thin trickle of water issued from the wall, and pooled in the road. On our way back, it wasn’t there.