Dorothy couldn’t handle being alone. She had gone from having five siblings, to none. It wasn’t something you could handle. Being abandoned by those you loved most, it was borderline frightening before she blew past that. Now it was downright terrifying. To cope with the loneliness, Dorothy would sing. There was an abundance of empty space to fill, after all. The woods were never truly quiet, and if Dorothy had entered of her own accord, it would have been peaceful. However, after being dumped on the dirt road, the woodland creatures had only made her more afraid. Birds singing. Trees swaying. The odd lap of the waves from a nearby lake, seemingly moving with the wind. Dorothy knew this was an odd forest. That was why she tried so hard to drown out the noise. There was an upside, however. Surprisingly, Dorothy continued through the forest, following no real path except the lack of noise ahead of her, and found a mysterious cabin in the woods. Inside the cabin, there was no reason to sing except for loneliness. Once you entered, it was like the noise of the woods simply stopped existing. It was in the cabin that Dorothy realized how controlling the call of nature really was. For an instance she stared down at the rug beneath her before falling onto her knees on top of it. “Why was I so drawn to the forest where I was then dumped? Why didn’t I just continue on the dirt path?” |
Thereafter, day and night, Dorothy would walk the path to the cabin after collecting her food, and waiting by the road and singing to the trees. She had hope that somebody else would come. But after a long time of this routine, Dorothy found her path shortening. She knew it was true. She had less room to walk between the road and the cabin. If she took a misstep, she would hear it. An orchestra of birds. Squirrels, deer, rabbits, all of them coming for her. She could feel the wind blow into her face, and hear it’s whispers glide past her ear. The call of nature. Once she made her way to the cabin, she began to get frantic. “What will they do to take me?” she wondered. She thought she should appease them. The next morning she led off the path and sang. It had no words, and the whole forest moved with her. Dorothy was confronted with all the sounds she had ignored and left to live in denial, joining her in song. It was overwhelming her, and she found it both oppressive and sublime. She turned to go, and found the wind whipping her hair in front of her. Dorothy scrambled to tear her golden locks away, as the wind moved her backwards. She tried to sing louder, but the wind stole her voice. There were sounds of animals, no longer far away and beautiful. Daunting, ferocious screams of havoc that she knew was only a few feet in front of her. When the wind finally died down and the animals had all scattered away, Dorothy came to a sight that left her crying. Her cabin was destroyed. She could no longer go against their calling. The birds began to sing and Dorothy sang with them. |