STOP!

Running, running, running.

The night is pitch, a blanket of darkness that engulfs the landscape and blinds those who dare to tread. Don’t go out after dark, they say, for even that which is known becomes strange. They want to scare us, to keep us away, but away from what? The darkness cannot hurt you anymore then the day.

People still die in the sunlight, are lost in the morning, and tortured throughout the afternoon. Anyway, I know where I am going. It calls to me. Where others would adhere to warning, I succumb to the cry of need, which awoke one day not too long ago…

“Stop!”

The tiny woman shouts, with hands flapping beside her head like two overzealous hummingbirds as she rushes to where the wedding party has been smashed into a perfectly posed memory by Suzie Smalls, wedding planner extraordinaire, who now rushes to correct a pinky moved just out of place. I hate weddings, I always have, so don’t ask me why I’ve even shown up.

With a flash, we are released from our unnatural positions.

“Having fun?”

This is asked with a sardonic tone. Nick knows well enough that I am hating every minute of this parade. Yet I promised my mother, though she would never live to see my special day… it was the least I could do.

I turn to Nick, a full body roll, but one with a smile. We have known each other since we were children catching fireflies in the overgrown lawns of careless homeowners. He knows me inside out…

He will understand.

“Are we there yet?”

I ask as though this were some road trip I was eager to get to the destination of.

“Soon.”

He answered as he rubbed my crossed arms, reassuringly. I looked at him, thinking how he was far too good looking to be so kind. He was tall with broad shoulders, sandy hair and Grecian profile. He could have been sculpted, whereas I was never anything special. I was not plain, but I was never anything outstanding. I had long straight black hair that I kept down but tucked behind my ears, I was fairly pale with large eyes but a rather blank stare, and a mouth that couldn’t help its naturally melancholy downturn. I guess it was the luck of geography that won Nick to me. That, and perhaps our storyteller hearts. But where his lent itself to fairy tales and whimsy, mine sank its claws into the psychology of myth and the credibility of its often carelessly outlandish lore.

Too curious and too much a thinker, I was always taking things one step further, and perhaps too far. I question everything, every angle, and every fact. I want to know that there is a reason behind every motive and a logical answer to every question. I dislike this notion that we can just say something is because we say it is so. I was a lot to take, but here Nick was taking me… till death…

It was the least I could do.

“At least the venue is intriguing.”

Nick said, attempting to make me feel more at home in such an unnatural thing as my own wedding party. We were in a large, yet somewhat secluded park set before a densely wooded forest. One long road was all that disturbed its scenery, running straight into the forest with a somewhat out-of-place stop sign standing just before the entry into woodlands. I wondered at its awkward placement and Nick must have seen my doubt, for he began to answer my thoughts before they could form themselves into a question.

“It’s more of a warning then a road sign.”

I turned to him with skepticism on brow to which he only looked amused.

“I told you the venue was intriguing, Amelia. It’s steeped in local folklore.”

“In local ghost stories, you mean?” I scoffed.

“Science fiction is just a prelude to science fact.”

This was always how Nick liked to approach things, with an open mind soaking up every version of truth that he could get his hands on. I much preferred my mind to be opened by fact. I liked to come into things somewhat skeptical and more cynically laced.

“What is it a car should fear from driving through?”

I asked with a sigh, turning to really examine this part of the wood. It seemed as any other, thick with trees tall and thin, compressed in their proximity to each other, so intertwined that alive or dead they were keeping each other up. In their close-knit bondage it was hard to make out what lay beyond, in fact, what lay within. It was about four in the afternoon, the sun was still out, yet inside their perimeter all seemed obscured by the darkness their concretion created.

It sparked mystery into the heart of the observer. And yes, in me. What was it that lay within the walls of its bounty? What was it that seemed to be kept so secret and shrouded?

“The want of it, I suppose. If you don’t know where you’re going, it makes you pause and have to rethink where you are.”

Nick said in response to my taunting. He was doing what he usually did and unifying the perspective of the whole. His way was to hear the stories for the thread of truth; mine was to see it for the cracks. Different means, but the same end goal.

“How existential of it.”

I said with a sardonic edge, yet I did not turn away from it. Instead, my focus honed in on the red octagon of warning sign and road -which seemed unnatural splitting one side of forest from the other with no real effect to its density, as though it had drawn itself like a curtain to allow the road to be paved through. But how this sign transfixed me now, as my eyes followed the curve of broken infinity that began its commanding statement.

“Stop!”

It seemed to shout in a demanding tone as it stood as sentry to this grand woodland. I felt somewhat affronted by its authority — how had it been granted custodianship of such a kingdom? What made it the arbiter of who’s allowed in or out, of who’s reasoning is sound enough to grant it entry? It was like a bouncer, capable of deeming who is cool enough and popular enough and pretty enough.

I don’t know that I ever was. Nick was. My mother was. I wonder, was she disappointed to have such a vapid daughter? It’s not that I was a disappointment, I was just never extraordinary. Nothing about me seemed to stand out. Even though I was persistent in my questioning, it was never to the point of rudeness or impertinence. I would simply ask my questions, collect my data and then move on. It’s not that I was quiet, or shy, or introverted even. I was simply there. I wonder what that must have been like for a woman — my mother — who was the center of whatever orbit she fell into. She was a star on earth, she was vivacious and achieving, making people feel as though they were just as special as she. Not me though. Not for lack of trying, just for lack of me. You see, I never wanted to be anything more than what I was. What I am.

“Amelia?”

The sudden sound of my name and touch of Nick’s hand on my shoulder shocked me from this reprieve, only to shock me more when I came to the realization that I had been moved — no, moving — towards the very stop sign on which my focus had been transfixed. I turned to Nick now, the cord of connection severed, only to find him somewhat out of breath as though he had come running after me. But how could that be?

“Nick?”

“What are you doing?”

I blinked up at him, unsure of how to answer with anything but the truth,

“I was thinking about my mother.”

I can’t decide if Nick’s expression read of relief or heartbreak, but he scooped me up so thoroughly into his arms that everything else that was pulling at my mind seemed to calm. Nick is the only one that saw my mother’s complete deterioration, who was there when I was called back from college to be with her. In the end it was more as a nurse than as a daughter. More as a thing than as myself. He understood the toll it had taken, though I don’t know that I ever could. I did what needed to be done until it was done. Until she was gone and I could give her no more. Yet here we stand now in the field of our wedding venue, three days until the big day… I’m still giving.

“One day…”

She had whispered to me as she lay in the soiled and matted sheets of what would be her deathbed, I had changed them just that morning, but it was never enough. I bent down beside her — pausing in the chores that kept me busy between her lapses of consciousness — and took her hand in my own, holding my breath, anticipating each time to be the last.

“I just wanted to one day see you take center stage,” She said as she weakly reached up to pull the hair out from behind my ear, “wanted to see you on your wedding day, when every woman gets to be a star.”

“But I’m not a star, mama, I’m just me. Only as dust will I be closest to a star, not before.”

I said hoping to amuse and change her train of thought, but she persisted,

“Promise me that chance,”

“But mama,”

I tried to brush my hair back, but she took hold of my wrist with such extreme persistence and strength that I was frozen in my tracks.

“Promise me that even if I’m not here with you, I’ll get at least that one chance.”

I wasn’t sure what to do and was concerned for her blood pressure.

“Okay.” I uttered, hoping to appease.

“On your wedding day.”

She said in a serious tone, half pulling herself up — she hadn’t lifted her own head in weeks! She was agitated, and I feared the fevered reasoning, so with quick step I fell into line,

“I promise that on my wedding day you will see me be the closest I can be to a star.”

I said quickly and concisely, thankful when her grip relaxed and she fell back into slumber with a smile on her lips.

I had to get out of there, had to get some fresh air to vent my frustration. Why could she not accept me for who and what I was? Accept me for my balance as I accepted her for her shine? It wasn’t until I went back in to find her with the same smile unmoved and no more breath in her body that I realized what a binding last request it had been.

So here we are, Nick and I - understanding all too well the responsibility of what a parent leaves behind, he with a philosopher’s heart and genius left to run his father’s auto shop due to an untimely heart attack — planning my mother’s dream wedding because I myself made a promise…

Was it really so bad a thing? So awful a wish? She only ever wanted me to shine, to see me shine, to see me.

“Stop!”

I am jerked from Nick’s quieting embrace by Suzie, who has the photographer stealing our moment, however it is the sign I turn to; the warning… and the trees.

It is said that those who go into the forest seeking are never seen again. That the forest only allows those with clear purpose to cross its threshold and see through their destination. That is the gist of the lore at least, though it sounded more like a tale of morality to me. I was really hoping for more of a Bell Witch haunting, at least that could have kept my interest longer.

It was all I could do to get through rehearsal, to follow the lines of the interwoven trees, to etch the collective shapes like intricate lacework. I wonder what it must look like from the inside when the light of the moon hits it? I imagine a disco ball effect and am filled with happy memories of Nick and I in his basement apartment laying among his scattered record collection and makeshift crate furniture. He had this lamp, its shape like an orb with a bunch of small flashlight bulbs scattered about its surface, some red, some gold, some white, and it would roll upon its mechanical platform and switch between the colors. We would sit in the darkness listening to music as the lamp played its light show upon the walls and ceiling, Nick’s arm wrapped around me as he narrated stories or just talked to me. One night he picked me up, and we just swayed to the sound of the crickets as the lights sparkled like diamonds in the sky upon us.

We neither of us wanted a big wedding, just to be wed, but we’ve made the most of it…

“Stop!”

Suzie is frustrated but when I look to see why I see the entire wedding party staring up at me as Nick and I stand at the altar, but it is not him I see, it’s the forest. It’s the red…

“Amelia?”

Nick says with compassion. I have lost myself in the rehearsal. I turn to him. They are waiting for me to say something, but I am at a loss. All I can think of to ask is,

“Haven’t we?”

“We don’t have to do this.”

Nick tells me once we are alone. Soon we will have to separate until we are once again on display in front of our friends and loved ones.

“You know I promised.”

“But some promises are meant to be broken.”

I turn from him to look out the motel window in the direction of our venue. It is only a few miles north, I believe I can see the top of the forest’s trees. I wish I could turn and take Nick’s hands with abandon and just run out of this place and down our own path, but I cannot. Something is calling me, pulling me to see this through.

“Not this one.”

I say, turning to him with great difficulty, for it seems that I have made my choice. What is the point of looking to him with half a heart, denying what I really want to be doing? Regretfully he kisses me goodnight and I am alone with my thoughts and feelings, but they are still, like when taking care of my mother. Mechanics of a human meant to serve. I do not have time for myself. I need to get out, get some fresh air.

Running, running, I soon find myself running. The night air flashes against my flesh, cool and relieving. I don’t need to think, I believe I know where I’m going, after all… I promised.

STOP!

Stone cold, I break from my euphoric haze. I stand before the STOP sign, before the forest, made darker by the night, limbs silhouetted by star spattered sky looking like stretched out extremities of some gargantuan spiders extended crawl. I blink at the now empty field to my right, stripped of our party’s decoration. They will reset up tomorrow — funny how collapsible the special day turns out to be.

I turn back to the sign, to the red carpet of road that leads into the void of path. I stare into its abyss. I do not know for how long. What would be the harm to walk in? To walk the road, a clear path after all, it’s not like I have to wonder among the trees, and besides, I know where I am going. I’m getting married.

“No Amelia,”

Something in my brain responds,

“You’re going to be a star.”

Before I know at all what I am doing, I have entered with a clear destination in mind…

The closest I will ever be to a star is dust.

Some things we should never try to comprise, for we can only ever be ourselves. Even when we are compelled to do it on their terms.

No one ever saw her again.