Aldo

Aldo

The forest  floor was carpeted with thick moss, droplets of dew holding in their fibers. Soft bird songs thrummed in unison high over head. A canopy made from layers of oak leaves swayed in a breeze not felt under its shadowy cover. Ferns clung to an area of broken earth that sloped away from the crest of a rolling hill.

Aldo Leopold sat in the shadow of a large oak musing that it might have been the source from which the rest of the forest had sprouted. From acorn to sprawling woodland Aldo followed the possible proliferation of the great oaks blood line. His deeply recessed eyes peered out from his under bushy gray brow absorbing each tree and fern cluster, every shrub and vine. In his mind the ancient landscape reversed through time. Trees un-growing and sealing themselves into their acorns which lept to the boughs of larger trees only for the acorn to be pulled back into shrinking branches. Years and generations of oak shrank away with time until all that was left were dusty foothills and the father oak.

Aldo adjusted his position with satisfaction, braced against the father oaks trunk. “This is a fine place to spend the next few days.” Removing his thin traveling boots Aldo burrowed his feet into the moss and deep layers of fallen leaves. His hands mounding the detritus of the forest over his legs, making note of beetles and spiders that scurried to find new homes. Aldo’s hand, now muddied, smeared damp earth over his exposed skin, then burrowed into surrounding leaves.

Aldos eyes looked past the particles hanging from his lashes and out into the forest, letting the patterns of the woodland arrange in his mind. His eyes became vacant and unfocused. He could feel his heart slowing. The damp earth on his feet felt welcoming, the moisture seeping through his skin. His hands, now lethargic, groped around a surface root, compacting the earth as he did so. Once satisfactorily tangled his fingers went limp. His mask of mud was drying into his pores, making a comfortable tightness spread slowly. Ants, stimulated by the movement of the forest floor, marched from the oak and onto Aldo’s torso. Their orderly column dividing repeatedly until the ants reached the upturned leafy dander, disappearing into the complex structure. Aldo’s eyes closed and a breath left his parted lips. His head lulled gently forward. His unkempt hair falling over his face. The displaced spiders anchoring their new webs in his hair, on his earth toned clothes. By nightfall the forest had engulfed Aldo. He would appear as little more than a lump of leaves and stone, just another contour of the forest.