Invitation

We stand atop an old shipping container, my brother and sister and I, looking out across the vacant lot. The stretch of abandoned asphalt, once-black bleached pale by sun and lichen, has been crumbled away by the lazy sprawl of tree roots and moss, creating a new, in-between world.

Gateway.

We straddle the border by the breath that we inhale and exhale, by the impatient rumble of the two motorbikes that carried us here, by the leaves in our hair and the rubber soles of our shoes, by the dirt that clings to our heels once the latter’s removed.

Living wood conquers dead stone so slowly, so steadily, its strength patient and boundless. Unyielding, it makes anew, and the remnant litter of absent humanity it adopts as its own.

Stacks of tires house wild ivy gardens, dancing clover, and clusters of mushrooms, golden-orange and extravagantly frilled, a row of ball-gowned fairies. Fabric scraps are sucked into the forest floor, merging with pine-needle, crackle-leaf, beetle-wing topsoil, the decay that births new life. Concrete blocks shelter the delicate stems of snow-capped fungi and acorn sprouts.

I climb down the side of the shipping container, alighting on grass and gravel mixed, to pad bare-foot toward the floor of the fungal gala, and feel myself an outsider welcomed. The grit and gravel bites into my skin, but a few steps forward find the moss a more forgiving host. It gives slightly, molding to my weight, cupping my toes, soft and damp and sweetly, intensely green.

I spare a precious moment to glance up at the siblings that didn’t follow, an intake of breath. The air tastes of leaves and endless sky, an ocean of sun-gilt clouds and air so blue and deep one could fall up and drown in it-

If they only let go.

My brother and sister dangle their feet off the edge of the great rust-colored monolith, toying with temptation to jump. Theirs eyes are teasing, laden with bird-song and chirring cicadas. The air brushes past them and down to me, a beckoning whisper, running light through our clothes and hair. It is sunlight and wind and the memory of rain. It is life and growth born from the fragrance of dying things: The breath of God.

I open my mouth and fill my lungs; If I hold this breath as long as I can, perhaps I can carry it home with me.

Then, a shout.

“Time to leave!”

My traitor mouth falls open to respond, and the Breath escapes. Not to be kept, it steals away into the bottomless sky, teasing temptation to jump.

I don’t, of course.

“Time to leave!”