Cow Shit

I took a walk in the woods behind our house when it looked like it was about to rain. I liked the way the sky looked, it meant there would be no one around, no one to share the pathless woods with. I could not stand the company of other people at the moment. I zipped up my green parka, laced up my boots and walked out of a scene in our living room that involved both of my sisters and my father. It was like something out of a Christmas movie, the entire family packed up on the couch, talking and smiling, feeling connected, being content. I pulled up the hood of my coat and hoped they wouldn’t notice me when I passed the windows. They didn’t. The best thing about growing up where we had were the woods. We used to play in them as kids all the time. I remember building tree houses and running with dogs, horses and birds. I hadn’t been here since I moved to the city four years ago. The landscape had changed a bit; new trees were starting to grow at he places where they hadn’t allowed the old ones to die. I lit a cigarette, despite of having quit again last week. The headaches had gotten worse again and I thought I might have another seizure if I went on smoking as much as I did. I am a proper hypochondriac like that. I watched the smoke of my cigarette float away on little gusts of wind. The land was preparing itself for a storm I thought, watching the lillies that got stuck at the dam where my sister nearly drowned when we were kids. It had been my fault. We had built a raft despite our parents warnings. I was the eldest, it had been my responsibility. I felt guilty when I disturbed the ground with my ashes. I kneeled down and looked at the life that had been smothered underneath my own private volcano. I slowly rerouted a sow-bug. When I had smoked my cigarette away until the filter I decided to put it in my pocked and carry it all the way home to bury it in the trash later on. The wind was getting stronger as I climbed over my neighbour’s fence. I felt like trespassing on his land because I desperately needed to see something new. Of course there wasn’t anything to see other then the same trees, the same sky and the same rocks as on our land. My boots were covered in cow shit as I turned back. I ran all the way home, the sky had finally opened up.