Abberation

The driveway seems ordinary at first.  A mailbox sits to the left of it, with a newspaper slot underneath, which usually is empty.  No one really takes the paper anymore, not even country folk.  They've never felt too keen on keeping up with politics or local crime statistics.  Heck, they don't even consider that crime even happens in their neck of the woods.  And when I say woods, I mean woods.  You find yourself put at ease by the smoothly paved drive for about the first quarter of a mile as you wind your way past horses waving their long tails in the sunlight, baby goats butting one another, a few chickens, literally crossing the road in front of you.  Then, and gradually, the pavement turns to just tar and gravel, bumpy, unkempt and crumbling in places so badly that you find yourself dodging potholes.

After you pass the fork where one part of the drive way hangs far to the left and a tree sits right in the middle of your way (I always imagine it's like the Scarecrow) the pavement ends altogether and you're driving on a dirt pathway, marked by ruts made by other vehicles.  The rains of spring-time do a fairly good job of eroding the roadway, leaving gullies and ruts that you must navigate--some of them you must drive straight through, hoping the bottom of your car doesn't drag the ground or that you don't get stuck.

"Whose idea was this anyway?"  He asked.

"Um, I think it was yours." She answered with a smirk.

"Oh yeah."  His boss told him about this place, a smart little cabin by a lake, deep in the woods away from civilization.  He offered the weekend to them, saying they'd come home feeling recharged--that nature would do them good. 

But her husband wasn't a nature freak like the beaus of her past.  He was a city boy, more comfortable on a subway train than in a tent.  Since they met, he took up hiking with her, bought camping equipment, a jeep.  In it, they kept a supply of last minute outdoor gear.  A small tent, a flashlight, a sleeping bag for two, matches.  As they set out for the weekend adventure the small cache of equipment behind the back seat, smashed beneath their luggage seemed inconsequential.  Thanks to the cabin, they wouldn't need it.

No one gave them a clue as to how long the drive up to the cabin might be.  They made that first turn onto the smooth pavement of 132 Pine Knoll Drive at sunset.  As they drove through along the roughly largely unkempt pathway deeper into the canopy of the forest, night time seemed to descend upon them almost  preternaturally.

"I think we need the headlights." She urged.

"I can see just fine and I'm the driver," he quipped.

"Well, maybe you can put them on for me then," She teased,"because I want to see where you're going."  She didn't want to admit it, but she felt nervous.  Her hands were folded tightly on her lap, as though she were trying to keep warm.  Really though, she needed them there so she could feel a sense of control over them.  The last few months their marriage seemed adrift, or more like they were adrift from one another.  Their jobs, the kids, the way life never really turns out the way you plan it took its toll on them day after day. Deep down, she had such high hopes for this time together that she felt anxious about saying or doing something to mess it up.  So she kept her nervous hands in her lap and plastered a smile on her face, hoping that somehow she could infuse the air between them with hopefulness, even romance.

Just as he flipped the headlights on, three deer appeared in the middle of the drive. He slammed on the brakes, the jeep sliding a little sideways across the dirt and gravel roadway.  The deer stood for a moment, frozen, like they say, in the bright lights of the jeep.  He honked the horn at them, waved his arms almost like he was trying to make them laugh, then yelled at them, "Shoo, shoo!  Go away!"
 After the deer sized up their jeep, they went on their way, across the driveway and through the thick woods, their white tails disappearing into a ravine.

"Ah nature!" He said with a big smile. "I'm feeling high already, just from the fresh air." He joked with her.  She knew he'd rather be pacing a city street filled with smog any day than to find himself surrounded by thick forest and the company of wild animals.

"Well I think they are majestic and beautiful."

"They are, They are." He agreed enthusiastically before shoving the jeep back into gear and continuing ahead, hoping that soon they'd reach the cabin--a sign of civilization, or at least some semblance of it, with indoor plumbing and a stove on which to cook dinner.

"I can already tell we are in for a great weekend." She chattered excitedly.  "Breakfast in bed, horseback riding, night swimming, it's going to be amazing."

"Breakfast in bed, huh?" He asked, amused.  "Who's going to get breakfast in bed?"

"Well," She answered sheepishly, "I was hoping maybe..."

"Breakfast in bed it is, my dear. If we ever get there..."  She could sense the irritation in his voice.  The driveway was beginning to seem impossibly long and more difficult to traverse the farther they went.

"Yeah, if we ever get there." she agreed.  "This is a really long driveway."  Her hands, still in her lap, she began to pick her cuticles nervously.  She knew her thinking tended to delve into the irrational at times.  Of course the driveway has an end, she thought to herself it can't just go on like this forever.

On and on they drove as night fell in earnest. Tree frogs and crickets began to serenade them from the darkness as a dampness seemed to soak into their clothes.  Not even  the moon helped to light their way.  The stars were extra bright, with no city lights around to lessen the view of their glow.  She leaned her head against the window of the jeep, looking straight up at the stars, trying to find the big and little dippers.  She remembered doing the same thing as a child, on the rides home at night with her dad.

They rode in complete silence, a tenseness in the air between them, not with one another, but about the situation they were in.   They hung so many hopes on this reunion with nature, with one another.  To fail at it--to end up lost,in it would ruin their entire plan.  She could already imagine the argument, them blaming one another for the wrong turn, the address written down incorrectly, the big joke his boss played on them.

She remained hopeful though, as they rounded one curve after another with no cabin in sight.  He began to wonder if their directions had been wrong.

"We've been driving for about seventeen miles already--slow driving too because this driveway is horrible."  How long had it been since his boss came out here, he wondered to himself.  "We have to be there soon.  Do you think we took the wrong turn?" He asked.
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"I don't think so.  The directions said, 'turn left at the mailbox marked 132 Pine Knoll' and that's what we did.  Maybe we should have taken the right fork back there at that tree?  Should we turn around?"

"Turn around?" He asked sounding incredulous. "After we've driven all this way? No way, we are committed now.  We either find the cabin tonight or we find a place to set up camp."

"I'll see if my phone has a signal out here." She dug in her purse and found her phone, the phone she promised not to bring.  He didn't even feel annoyed at her for breaking her promise.  He was just hopeful that she could find a signal and perhaps access her GPS so they could see how close they were getting.

"Well?" He asked, stopping the jeep.

"Nothing." She looked worried and disappointed.

"Hey, don't worry," He told her.  "We have this under control. I brought plenty of supplies and if we have to, we can find a place out here in the woods and camp out for the night, find the cabin in the  morning."

"Yeah?" She asked, hopeful.  "We could have a romantic camp out?"

"Absolutely!" He grinned.  "I even brought those candles that keep mosquitoes away.  We can eat dinner by candlelight."

"What dinner?"

"Oh...um, well, I got your favorite chocolate, some graham crackers and, lets see, a can of sausages" His lip curled in a cute sort of way when he said "can of sausages."

They both laughed.

"Okay then." She smiled, "Let's do it.  Let's have a camp out right here in these woods!"

He drove a little further on until he came to a flat piece of road with a small clearing to the right.  "There's enough room for the tent over there," he pointed, "And look at all that fallen brush, perfect for our campfire."

Before long their tent was erected, their campfire glowing in the black of night--the New Moon graciously lending an air of romance to their adventure.They had one flashlight with batteries and the headlamps of the jeep to help them navigate their way around putting up the tent and gathering their firewood. 

Together they ate the bar of dark chocolate, washed it down with lukewarm champagne straight from the bottle.  Cuddled up under a blanket by the fire they talked about nothing and everything.  They ignored the sounds of coyotes in the distance, the crackle of deer feet along the fallen branches in the deep woods around them.  They didn't hear when the mama bear wandered across the drive behind their jeep, stopping to sniff for food before she passed it up, taking her cubs with her into the other side of the forest.

Oblivious to the sound of an owl swooping down to catch a mouse just outside the zipped up haven of their tent, they made love without restraint, the creatures around them, ignoring the noises they made.  Nature accepts nature as it is, the sounds and sights, nothing warranting judgment or diversion.

Aberrations, though, hide among us as much in the perfunctory and expeditious tasks of suburbia as on the wayward path of a driveway that leads to nowhere and an aberration moved among them in the deep forest that night.  Not quite human, not quite beast, it stood at a distance, leaning against a sycamore, waiting for the sounds from the tent to fade, waiting for the lumbering sounds of sleep to take them over as their campfire began to fade under the star-dotted sky. 

News reports all say that the tent was found with all their things inside--a double sleeping bag, a purse with a dead cell phone, a box of unopened graham crackers, some canned sausages and two sets of clothes.  An empty champagne bottle lay on the ground by the smoldering fire, as though it were abandoned in the middle of a game of "spin the bottle."

Their jeep had four flat tires.  The keys for it were never found and there were no footprints on the driveway going in or out.  They had seemingly disappeared into the forest, no sign of either of them anywhere.

Just around the curve from where they stopped to set up camp, the porch light of the cabin still glowed, awaiting their arrival.  Inside the door, a vase of  fresh white lilies sat on the kitchen counter. Beside them, a card in a yellow envelope with her name scrawled on the front, was never opened, never read. Along the edge of the lake, a tall figure walked in a long stride, its footsteps leaving no trace in the mud around the shoreline.  Fog hung heavy over the waters, and the coos of mourning doves began to fill the early summer morning air.