forever

I came upon Victor sitting beneath a tree by a stream. Behind the tree was a tall, stone cliff, smooth and unclimable. It towered far above blocking out any direct sunlight. We were lit by clouds of reflection.

The stream was cool, I discovered, dipping my toes into its gently babbling path. There were smooth rocks on the bottom, slippery and bright with quartz. Clear water flowed around my ankles, easing my mind and soothing my sore arches. I hadn't been to this part of the woods before, and I was surprised to see Victor here. I was expecting someone else.

Victor looked up, noticing me for the first time. He smiled at me.

"How long have you been here," I asked.

"I'm not sure, it seems like forever," said Victor.

"Did you follow the stream?" I asked. "I didn't see your footprints the way I came."

"No, I didn't come that way," he said.

"Then how did you get here?"

"I was always here," said Victor. He wrinkled his nose in confusion. "Weren't you?"

"No," I said, "I just got here."

"I didn't see you," said Victor, "and I've been here a long time. Are you sure you just got here?"

I looked down at my feet, submerged past my shins now in the stream. I was barefoot. I looked around, but I didn't see my shoes. In fact, I could not picture my shoes at all. I wasn't sure that I'd ever worn shoes. Behind me, the stream meandered lazily into a dense forest of tangled branches and damp, fallen leaves. It didn't look like the sort of place I'd venture without shoes. It didn't look like the sort of place I'd traverse without leaving prints. But I saw no footprints.

"I came from there," I said, pointing back into the forest.

"Nonsense," said Victor. "Where are your shoes?"

I shrugged. "I don't think I've ever worn shoes," I said. "How about you? Where are yours?"

Victor glanced at his bare, leathery feet and grinned. He was wearing only a pair of short shorts. I don't think I'd ever seen Victor without a shirt on before this. He was sitting with his back up against the trunk of the tree, his legs stretched out toward the stream, but not reaching it. His hands were raised above his lap, and they were moving. I hadn't noticed before then what he was doing, but now I studied his movements closely. His hands looked entirely empty, but they grasped and moved as if they were not. They went through all the motions of carving something, an invisible something of some length.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm making a telescope," he said.

I nodded. A telescope would be a good thing to have. When we were younger, Victor and I had come out to this forest, away from the lights of the city, to look at the stars. That seemed so long ago... but I knew it had only been last week.

"We were out here last week, looking at the stars in your telescope, were we not?" I asked.

"No, I don't think so," said Victor, "because what you say implies that we left here at some time. We have not. We've always been here."

I thought about what I'd said, and what Victor had said, and I began to see the sense of it. Of course, we had not left our spot by the stream. Where would we go? The stream, the tree, and the rock. That was the extent of our world, and it always had been.

"When will it get dark?" I asked.

"Dark?" said Victor.

"Yeah, dark," I said. "How will we see the stars if it is not dark?"

"Ah," said Victor, smiling again. "You'll see. Come out of the stream, sit over here by the rock."

I looked down. The skin on my feet had begun to shrivel from the cold of the stream. I stepped out onto the grass and shook the droplets from my toes. Some of the drops sailed through the air, landing in the stream, causing ripples that elongated and flowed away into the forest. I followed them with my eyes, until they were gone.

Victor was doing something with his hands. He was seated with his back against the tree trunk, his legs outstretched, his hands poised above his lap. He held nothing that I could see, but he stared intently at his empty hands, moving them around one another, grasping at air, carving away at invisible wood with an invisible knife. His concentration was intense, and it drew me in. I stared, rapt, at the motion of his hands. Carving, turning, carving, turning. He went on like this for what seemed like hours, and I did not grow tired of watching him.

The leaves in the forest behind me rustled. There was no breeze, no reason for there to be movement. But they rustled, and whispered, and spoke to us in the language of the forest. They told of visitors, transient but permanent. They spoke of passing ages, lifetimes measured in infinities, seasons measured by the movement of galaxis. The leaves spoke of a visitor. The visitor spoke.

"What are you two doing here?" asked Margie.

I kept my attention fixed on Victor's hands. He had moved from long, lengthy strokes to short, precision scrapes. He was rotating his wood rapidly while detailing the ends. I answered Margie's question with a question: "What do you mean?"

"How did you get here?" asked Margie.

"We've always been here," I said. "Just like you."

"That's not so," said Margie. "I just arrived."

"Really?" asked Victor. "Where did you come from?"

"The forest," said Margie.

"Where are your shoes?" asked Victor.

Margie said nothing, and the leaves spoke again. This time, there was a breeze. It was warm, coming out of the forest and toward the rock, opposing the flow of the stream. From the corner of my eyes I could see ripples forming on the face of the water, moving glacially toward Victor and his invisible telescope. The ripples became farther and farther separated, and then stopped.

"What are you making?" asked Margie.

Victor did not answer. I didn't think she was talking to me, for I was not making anything. I did not answer.

"Are you coming to sit down, or what?" asked Victor.

"All right," Margie and I said, our voices mingling. I turned as I walked toward the cliff-face, and saw Margie. She wore nothing, I sensed, yet I could not see her nakedness. Her feet were bare, and she left no imprint upon the grass as she walked. We reached an empty spot by the rock wall and sat.

"The stars will be out soon," I said.

"It's going to be dark?" asked Margie.

"No," said Victor.

"How will we see the stars, then?" asked Margie.

"I don't know," I said.

"What's he doing?" asked Margie.

"Nothing now," said Victor. "I'm finished." He closed his knife with one hand, putting it on the grass by his leg, where he'd be sure not to lose it. He blew along the length of the newly carved telescope, his powerful breath reaching across the grass and into the placid stream. He shook the telescope off, and slapped it against his knee to remove any shavings. "Ready?" he asked.

"To see the stars?" asked Margie.

"That's right," said Victor.

"But it's not dark out," I said.

"Look behind you," said Victor.

Margie and I turned around to examine the face of the rock wall. It was smooth for as far up as I could see, uninterrupted gray rock towering far above. But directly in front of my eyes was a hole bored into the rock, perfectly round, and perfectly dark. It was wider than my thumb, but putting my finger inside it I could feel neither end nor air. I had no idea how deep the hole was. It emitted no light.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's part of my telescope," said Victor. "Watch."

Victor rolled onto his feet and walked two steps from his tree over to the hole in our rock wall. He inserted the end of his invisible telescope into the rock. "Have a look," he said.

Margie went first. She positioned her eye at the end of the invisible telescope and peered through the hole in the rock face. She gasped. "What is it?" she asked.

"Stars," said Victor. He looked at me. "Your turn," he said.

"All right," I said. Margie stepped aside and I put my eye before the hole. I closed my other eye and focused my open eye through the lens of Victor's telescope. I saw darkness, bursting with light. Unimaginable globes and swirls of pulsating white and blue light whirled across my vision. Stars, galaxies, nebulae. Celestial bodies limitless and bright, all sweeping before my squinting eye, leaving trails of brightness for brightness to devour. I saw far into infinity, beyond the reach of speculation, beyond the dreams of imagination. I saw movement beyond the stars, where stillness should reign. My soul was startled. I pulled back.

I looked around. I was standing by a rock wall that stretched immensely into the sky, blocking out the sun. I was illuminated by cloudlight and forest mist. A tree grew next to a stream which meandered lazily into a dense forest. The leaves of the forest whispered secrets to me in a language I had heard uncounted times before but had never learned to comprehend. They seemed to be laughing, rejoicing, singing with joy. They were welcoming me.

I had been in this place forever, I thought. I remembered no time before this place. Only the tree, the stream, the forest, and the rock. I examined the rock. There was a hole in it, a little bit wider around than my thumb. I put my finger into the hole to explore, but I felt no end to it, no breeze to suggest another opening, no dampness to suggest depth. I wondered if I could fashion a device to see through to the other end of the hole.

Someone had left a pocketknife on the grass by the trunk of the tree. I took two steps over to reach it, and sat down, my back against the trunk, my legs stretching out toward the restless stream. Next to the knife was a long stick, hollow and rough. If I could carve a little off the circumference, it might fit through the hole and provide me with a view of the other side. I wondered how I had not noticed the knife and stick before. I'd been here so long and had never seen them.

I picked up the knife and the stick and went to work.