The Woods

In the falling snow, I missed her. I missed her so much, but I can’t let that get to me now. My weight compacts the snow into a singular, perfect footprint that I can’t get rid of. I can’t go back. I can only go forward on and on until the end. Snow slowly covers a fallen tree.

It wasn’t anything that she did, in fact, she was perfect in every way. She took care of me when I was sick, she put up with me during my drunken stupors, and she even watched pornography with me. What more could a guy want? A woman who watches pornography with him and makes fun of the actresses’ tits, it was blissful. She would cook from time to time, although her biscuits and gravy sucked, she could cook a wonderful dinner. She didn’t care that I was poor still trying to earn my way after college and she would even turn off the television so I could focus on reading.

But something inside of me didn’t set right. For some strange reason, I imagined picking her up by the mandible and slamming her body into something hard like a tree trunk and her body going limp like a noodle and she letting out a final death screech like a rabbit, and me with my hands wrapped around her lower jaw. The veins pulsing out of my hands, me breathing heavy, and staring at her lifeless corpse. I think the Germans call this Schadenfreude, but I’m not certain.

I didn’t know what to do. What person in his right mind has thoughts like these? I read through all the literature on the subject of relationships and I even went to a counselor. All I recall from the counselor was her saying, “It’s good that you know these thoughts are bad.” Yea, no shit. I doesn’t take a rocket scientist or an engineer to figure that out. I felt awful.

I took to walking in the woods surrounding my house as a way to avoid her for a short amount of time. Walking through the woods brought peace to me. It allowed me time to myself so I could try and work through these feelings. I even thought about breaking up with her, but I couldn’t bring myself to go through with it, because I just imagined her grey eyes welling up with tears and her little pink lip quivering while I stood there and told her, “I can’t be with you anymore.”

She would say, “Why not?”

Obviously I couldn’t tell her the real reason. I would lie and say, “My mother doesn’t like you. She thinks you’re a bad influence on me.”

Of course she would say to me, “You’re nearly twenty-three years old and you’re going to let your mother rule your life. God, you’re so pathetic.”

That only served to kindle the fire of evil inside of me. So I could never carry on the fake conversation more than a few sentences. The woods would hear me and answer me in silence forged in countless ages of remaining upright and erect against the harshest elements. The trees have survived through fires, ice ages, and deforestation and I’m out here complaining about evil thoughts that I shouldn’t be having.

I eventually found a space in the forest to my liking. It was a clearing with a stump set in seemingly near the center. I would sit on the stump and scratch the wood with my finger nail. The sound of the nail against the wood was like the sound of rubbing mesh together. I sat and my thoughts continued while the snow descended towards the ground.

Once I thought about holding her head in both my hands and slowly twisting her skull until I heard the vertebrae snap and see her eyes roll backwards in their sockets and then I would wait until rigamortis set in and I would snap the muscles of her back and forearms making sounds like twigs or branches underfoot. That’s what happens, you know, the muscles stiffen so much that the body can’t be repositioned. Undertakers have to be strong so that they can reposition the body into a serene scene of peaceful departure, but not me. I imagined after the blood pooled in her back and it turned the flesh black that I would struggle to reposition her to make it look like an accident.

Another time, I took a .38 special out with me, because of the reports of wolves in the area, and I would take the slugs out and reinsert them, because of the sliding metal sound. I imagined one of the hollow points spiraling trajectory and then twisting through the flesh of her breast and then grinding as it punched through her rib cage and then disintegrating her heart and punching out the back leaving a hole with a diameter of ten inches in her back as it continued on until it stuck in the bark of some tree.

Then a new thought came to me. What if I shot the gun up in the air and made her stand under the bullet? That wouldn’t work, because of the sound given off by the expansion of gasses and the mini sound barrier break from the projectiles’ firing. It would be impossible to make her stand in one spot and I didn’t like the idea of shooting her, it was too removed from me doing it. I didn’t see a wolf that night, but I hoped I would.

I took to walking cats out to the clearing in the forest and shooting them in the hopes that my bloodlust would be sated, but it never helped. Killing cats wouldn’t do anything except make a venerable pet cemetary.

She began to question me. “Where do you go with the .38?”

“I just go to the woods to sit.” I tell her.

She wrapped her arms around me and I imagined snapping her arm at the elbow and hearing her scream, but then I’d shove my fist into her mouth and dislocate her jaw and then tear her throat out. I put my hand over hers. “I’d like to come with you sometime, but leave the gun. There isn’t a need for it. There hasn’t been a report of wolves in weeks.” She told me.

She leaned up towards my earlobe. I felt and heard her hot breath. She nibbled on my ear. This is what I’m supposed to want. I’m supposed to turn her around and mount her like a lion, but with the way my thoughts have been, I don’t really want this. “Hey,”

“Shh, don’t speak.” She puts a finger to my lips and runs her hands through my hair, grasping a tuft full and pulls me towards her mouth. She then leads me to the bedroom and lays me down on the bed.

She gyrated her hips and torso while she undressed like the twisting of crocodile death roll. It was something beautiful to see, that. I imagined the bones in some wayward antelope crushing under the immense pressure. I watched her undress like she did the first time I met her. I took off my jeans and shirt and threw them on the floor. I walked over towards her and she pushed me back to the bed.

She came over to me and gently held me with her soft, perfumed hands. We tried and tried for what seemed like hours. Using her hands, mouth and body on me. All I could think was this is what I want. This is what I want. I want her and she wants me.

Then I began to cry. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It happens, don’t worry.” She said.

I felt guilty. Guilty for having my horrendous thoughts the many days and weeks prior, but this did it. I couldn’t stand it. Everytime I saw her after work, it burned a hole in me. She knows, she knows a terrible secret and can use it against me whenever she wants. She would look up from whatever she was doing and smile as I walked in the door and took off my shoes.

After many weeks, I decided that I would take her out in the woods with me. She readily and happily accepted like a big, stupid dog doesn’t understand when you insult it.  We walked through the trees, me leading her, carving my usual path through the woods. We finally came to the clearing.

“Is this what you do out here?” She brushed some of her blond hair behind her ear.

“Well not exactly,” I began but trailed off. I was overcome with excitement. I didn’t know how I would do it. I brought an axe and told her we could chop firewood, if she wanted. “I normally just sit and think.”

“Well, that sounds interesting. What do you think about?”

“Nothing really.” And there she was, helpless like a puppy. Looking at me with love in her eyes which was unconditional. Her very existence seemed to bring about these dark thoughts. So then if I killed her, they would leave me. I made up my mind to do it.

I charged her and tackled her to the ground. She stumbled backwards and the stump tripped her. I was on top now and I had both my hands wrapped around her throat. I was squeezing and squeezing. She lost consciousness or died, I’m not sure. I then dragged her back and began smashing her skull on the stump. It made a dull thud like knocking on wood. Eventually, the thud became squishy sounding like squeezing a sponge. Blood decorates the once white clearing.

I dismembered her body with the axe and scattered the parts in hopes that the wolves will eat them. But I still miss her. I still love her too, I think, but I’m not sure.