Truth in the metal tree

The life of Eugene Davis

The city

honk*...honk*...HONK* Eugene comes to looking at his hands, tightly grasping the steering wheel at 10 and 2’. He realized he never did this; he always held his hands below the steering wheel loosely. His dad always yelled at him, wanting him to hold his steering wheel the way “the book” did.

HOOOONK* Eugene looks past his hands, realizing the traffic was inching away. He fixed his grip and let go of the brake with a fresh feeling under his foot due to how long he had been braking. As he reached the back of the car behind him, he began to escape into his mind again, without thought, just existing, the sound fading. Eugene didn't know why he did this or why it felt so good; the only way he could describe it was as escaping.

BRNGGG* he looked down and realized it was his boss. A gut drop feeling hit Eugene as he looked at the vibrating phone. With frustration, he clicks the button.

“Eugene,” Mark, Eugene's boss, eagerly says.

“Hey Mark, what's up?” Eugene said,

“SO things are going extremely well on our end, and we are trying to push the project to be done this Friday,” Mark said with a mix of clear excitement while still pretending to care about Eugene's situation.

“So I need it all done by Thursday afternoon,” Eugene asked,

“Yeah, sorry, man, I wish I could have given you more time, but this is how it's gotta be, this is why we get paid. ”

Eugene, taking this new information in, gets a burst of sheer overwhelmedness and exclaims;

“I'm taking today off. I feel kinda crappy and want to take a vacation day, and think he has to take his dog to the vet.” Pulling together three excuses. As soon as Eugene let slip those words, he realized the mistake he had made.

“What are you trying to say?” Mark asked.

“I'm taking a vacation day, man, I will still work on the project, I just need today. ” Eugene said as he defeatedly hung up the phone, he knew he had messed up, but they needed him, and Mark would understand. He takes the next exit, escaping the never-ending traffic with his head spinning, knowing he needed to escape.

Enter the Woods

Eugene snapped to again as he put his car in park. He had not even realized he was there. It felt as if he vanished from time; it had been happening all day in traffic, but as he got closer to his destination, it felt stronger, deeper, almost like a trance.

Eugene steps out of his car, grabs his dogs, and sets off trudging through the high grasses to get to these woods he once called home. The trail he was looking for was deeper in the woods, and he needed quiet; he needed to be alone. All the noise of the office he works in, his boss, whom he once called a friend, that he now looks at, and all he feels is disdain and heavy air when they talk. Too many miscommunications, hurt feelings, while pretending no consequence. They used to walk on these trails together as kids, fighting with sticks, talking about their big dreams and the companies they would start together. Now it feels different, and Eugene just wants even a sliver of what the friendship meant to each other, but Eugene thinks maybe too much has changed.

Eugene stops and takes a deep breath. He reached the entrance to the trail. It was very overgrown, and he could see the man had placed rocks that moss sprawled across like stars. He felt a sense of nostalgia while also realizing a lot had changed. The path that once never had a single piece of litter was now covered in old metal pieces that looked like they went together to make some massive contraption. The metal was all twisted and rusted, and Eugene touched it, thinking about the possible inventions and products. Eugene realizes what he is thinking about and snaps to this is what he came to escape, the metal, the same ugly copy and paste city building that had slowly dulled Eugene's mind to not even look at the surroundings.

Soon Eugene can distract himself with nature as he walks, all the while the forest grows deeper, the woods grow dense, and more and more metal pieces pile and pile up.

The Metal

A cold breeze runs across Eugene's neck, and the force drawing him in grows stronger as the air gets heavier. Eugene starts hearing a distant creaking, metallic, clanking, banging, and bending. It sounded like a mechanical beast trying to make its way through the woods. But that was just Eugene's first thought; he didn't know why he thought that, but he convinced himself that it was because he had a lot on his mind, and he was stressed out and tired. He fights through the tired, hearing the metal grow from barely hearable to a cringeworthy scream, and starts jogging his big dogs, leading the way.

As Eugene and his dogs run down the trail, he notices the metal growing more and more on the side of the trail, and he realizes the sounds have stopped...

*snap a tree branch breaks deep in the woods *grrrr Eugene hears his dogs start growling and pulling in the opposite direction, pulling like they never have, and as he is looking in the direction of the snap and the leashes go limp, the dogs run forward in trail after escaping their collar.

Now Eugene is alone, the wind is blowing from the direction of the noise, the forest is so dark, and it is only getting darker. Thinking about how he has to save his dogs. Eugene notices that this is a more concealed forest than he has ever seen. The pressure of everything, this noise and everything that Eugene was trying to escape, was hitting him harder than ever before. He starts running as the snapping he hears seems like it is getting closer, he runs the trail, he keeps going and keeps going, the sharp, rusted metal parts becoming more and more abundant.