The Shortcut

I grew up two blocks away from a park. The park had a playground, 3 baseball fields, a basketball court, and a small street hockey rink. I've spent many hours at this park from playing tag at the large playground, from playing baseball, basketball, and hockey. It was many years later when I accidentally discovered the secret path.

We were playing tag with the older kids in the playground. They were 12 and I was only 8. One of them was "it" and was chasing the other. Because the we were significantly slower, they were busy chasing each other. So, as spectators, we followed to see the chase. One hopped over the playground fence and dashed into the woods. We followed but we lost him. Like a typical scary/sci-fi movie scene we went looking for him. The 60-ft tall trees were blocking out the sun. So naturally, it was darker and cooler. There were dead leaves scattered. After all it was fall.

What's that sound?

It's burbling. Water? In the woods? I was walking towards the sound like I was hypnotized. I make out a dirt path and follow it. I feel warmth against my face. I see beautiful yellow light reflecting off of the leaves that haven't yet fallen. Below it was the source of the sound. A brook 6 inches deep and 3 feet wide at most. It has beige sand, brown dirt, with black branches and leaves stretching across. On the other side, there were tall green stalks. They weren't the typical ones you see at a marsh but it looked so familiar. It had oval pointy leaves. It was bamboo! A lot of it. So much that it made a wall so dense, you couldn't see past it. It was so tall, all you could see was the sky above. I didn't think bamboo grew here in the US. I always thought they only grew in Asia but here I was thinking I had discovered something that was National Geographic worthy. I got closer and noticed there were leaves hovering over the brook. Beneath them were small wood planks. It was a small bridge. The hairs on the back of my neck tingled as they stood up and my eyes widened at the realization that all this was man-made! I look on the other side of the bridge and all I could make out was grass below the low hanging branches and leaves.

I must have been alone for 5 minutes at least. I ran back towards the playground to get my friend. I wasn't ready to cross the bridge alone to disappear without anyone knowing. My friend followed me through the path. "Look, it's bamboo!" I yelled. He froze. "Let's go back," he suggested.

"But, there's a bridge, too!"

"I'm going back." We both fled. That was the end of my first encounter with the bridge and I had forgotten that the path existed.

My older sister and I liked to bike around town with friends. They showed us some secret places within the town. Once, they brought us to the mountain bike path with all these crazy jumps. We always had a lot of fun. We would blindly follow whoever was in front. This time he went downhill on a steep dead-end street. We followed. He stopped at the end of the street and hopped off his bike. He lifted his bike over the curb and tilted his head shouting "Come on!". We followed him through the dirt path that led to the woods. It was the bridge to the park!

After this realization, I walked home from school through this path every time because it was special to me. It probably wasn't a big secret but it always felt like a part of me.