Sometimes I forget how close we are to the wild. In Michigan it’s not far off, unless you’re in Detroit or Flint or one of the heavy urban centers. Lakes are everywhere. Strands of trees threatening to become forests. Tall grasses breaking through overpass concrete, groundhogs munching at the side of the road, wild turkeys strutting through Pontiac. It’s close.
If humanity vanished, it wouldn’t take many years for the wild to re-take the land. There are shows about it, detailed and eerie. A horror movie I was in years ago had sentient trees just beyond the borders of humanity. It was poorly done, but the concept was interesting. Like ‘The Happening’, but less stupid.
Middle Earth and Narnia aside, walking trees don’t scare me. Raccoons and rodents rising up don’t keep me awake at night. We’re not about to lose a fight to Mother Earth, if it came to that.
How easy would it be to wander off into a strand of trees and never emerge? Fall down with a broken leg, drown in a nearby mire, vanish into the depths of a lake? It happens all the time. People get drunk and drown. They die in the woods during memorial day camping trips. We forget that we don’t need to go to Death Valley or the UP to find brutal nature. It’s here. It’s waiting. And if we’re stupid or careless or just unlucky, it will kill us.
I like going to the park. I like walking through trees. I like nature. I respect it. I fear it during my dark moments. I just wonder how many others do too. And how many are dead.
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