Tunnel of Trees - A Short Story

I'm running through a tunnel of trees, the sun raining through the canopy in beams of light. The leaves come in all bright shades of green and yellow. The path I am running on, is the softest green grass one will ever feel on there feet. The tree tunnel is short, much to short for grownups to come in, unless they were to crawl, but grownups never come here; yet it is perfect for my friends and I, us being only young children. The smell of flowers, moss, and late morning dew flows through the air, and you can here the laughter and pitter-patter of my friends and I running through the tunnel. This is a memory, or maybe just a dream, but when was a dream ever so vivid?

I wear a white dress, its in the style you only see in old black a white photos, my hair in two braids, with powder pink ribbons on each end. My friends, two boys, are the same age as me, and they are also dressed in clothing from the past. So this must be a dream, but it feel so much like its something I'm remembering, like it has happened before.

As we run, I am just a bit faster then the boys, and we are all laughing happily. We have been running for a long time, but my friends and I are not at all out of breath or tired, and this happy run has turned into a lighthearted race. We hear the grown up, are parents, calling for us to come back. For we have been gone a long while. We can hear them hollering for us, but we ignore them, because it is a race now, and we all want to win. All this time we have been running, but have not really gotten anywhere, yet we don't seem to notice, and even if we did, we wouldn't care.

Through this whole dream or memory, what ever it is, it has been beautiful, sunny, happy, and peaceful. Thought very slowly, as we run so fast the trees seem to blur together, the sky starts to darken, as if a big cloud has gone and blocked the sun. With the slow but sudden darkening, something to the right caches my eye, and right at that moment I stop laughing with my friends. To my right looks to be a shadow of a abnormally skinny dog running beside us, but there is no dog for the shadow to come from, and the paws of the shadow are floating in midair, with no connection to anything.

We run faster now, frightened. The dog shadow runs faster as if chasing us, and I could swear I heard a growl from behind me. We are to afraid to turn back or stop running away, so we keep going as fast as we can. The boy on my right trips and falls to the ground. The other boy and I keep running, as tears start to run down my cheeks. I look back as I run to see if I can see the fallen boy, but he is gone. Then I look to my left to see the boy running with me, but he is also gone. I'm alone in this tunnel of trees that seems to have no end. The shadow dog is not alone anymore, it is now joined by two other ominous shadow dogs. I am distressed, and crying while I run as fast as I possibly can, for what seems like forever. Still oddly I am not out of breath or tired.

I stumble a little, and look to my side again, the shadow dogs are gone, and up ahead I see a dark gap on the right. I run to the gap remembering that this was where my friends and I would always come to play, are secret nook in the tunnel of trees, it had never taken this long to get here before. All of the treasures and toys that my friends kept in this nook are gone, only my thing remain. My old box full of marbles, pretty postcards, and shiny coins.

I wanted to go home, but i was afraid to go back the way I came. I could ether stay in the nook where I was alone, or keep going ahead, but my friends and I had never gone past the secret nook. I was frightened to go back, to stay, and to go ahead. I sat and cried as it got darker.

I got up and brushed the dirt from my dress now stained from the grass, and started running ahead, into the unknown.  -The End-
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This is a dream that I have had a few times throughout my life, and every time I wake up from it, I feel a kind of sadness. I view the dream through the eyes of this girl, so I don't know if this girl is really me or not, the clothing and hair are nothing like mine, and she is only like nine years old in this dream. It seems like a memory and plays in my mind like a short beautiful film. I think there is some symbolism in it, about growing up, and the loss of your childhood days, but there is a lot more to it. What do you think?

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--Emma (P.S. - all photography on my blog is by me. Except for the family photo a few post back.)

"The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence, makes innocence unattainable." - Irving Howe