They’d been a couple for over forty years, and were now retired. To keep their love tender, a walk in the woods was the best form of leisure; to keep an open ear after so many years, what better than to listen to the silence of the leaves? Their rustlings would sometimes unveil certain secrets that only the trees of this immense forest understood. The forest was impenetrable. For the uninitiated, for city-dwellers in search of clean air, it was easy to get lost in. There were no signposts, no streets, no passers-by or café waiters to ask directions from, only the vast green carpet of moss, a few overgrown paths, the ferns and the burrows lurking amidst the brown humus.
Janice insisted they should go farther into the forest. “Heavens no, dear. I would much prefer to admire the trees and listen to the woods from this bench,” replied Winston. “You’re not going to get lost in the forest like those explorers swallowed up in the Amazon, or sucked in by quicksand in the Egyptian desert. You shouldn’t worry so,” Janice reassured him. “You of all people, Winston,” she added, tickling his pride. Winston knew what she meant. Twenty years before, he had fought at El Alamein, in that desert battle against the Nazis. It had been a turning point in the desert war. He was only a soldier, serving Great Britain and the Allied cause. He had met American soldiers, too. The outfit he was part of was largely made up of Yanks, most of them from Iowa. He was glad to have them, those sons of the Wild West. They sweated under their helmets and choked in the heat of the tanks, but they fought and died with honour. If they hadn’t shared their tins of corned beef with the other Allied troops, Winston would not have had the strength to climb the dunes, to pull his feet from the sand, and to stay upright. Thank you, Uncle Sam.
After a few hours of idleness on the bench, Janice took her beloved by the hand and told him to get up. She wanted to cherish and satisfy him to the end. She would never leave him to take his walk alone. She had sacrificed so much to hang on to Winston, praying and begging for his safe return. It was time to move on. The desert had separated them for too long, even here as they looked toward the horizon.
“If only I could get in touch with some of the lads from El Alamein,” smiled Winston.
“Come now, Winston. Walk straight until the end. I won’t leave you alone.”
As they took the wide path that intersected the forest from east to west, the sun dipped below the tree line. Winston shivered; his woollen coat was not warm enough for the evening chill. He pulled his hat down over his ears and squeezed his wife’s hand. She looked happy, and had stopped speaking. She was observing the life of the forest; the shaking of a thicket, perhaps a family of rabbits, or the beating of wings in a holly bush, and there...she squinted, and turned to her husband with a look of glee. A few metres away stood a doe and her fawn.
Alan Alfredo Geday