Into the Wilderness

Dead asleep on my bed—helpless and susceptible to the dangers of the night—a bright flash of harsh light slices open my eyes to two strange faces.

The two faces command, “Wake up!”

I hear in the background my mother’s whimpering voice and then my father’s weathered voice.

The strangers’ hands are cold. They prod me in my sides with their icy fingers, until I get out of bed. They only give me a few minutes to get ready and to brush my teeth.

“You don’t have to take anything with you,” they say.

“We’re in a hurry,” they declare.

“We must leave now if we’re to make it in time,” they bark.

“It must be something important they’re taking me to!”

They take me by both hands—positioning me in between them—as we march out the front door. They don’t let me say goodbye to my cats or sister. They usher me into a dark car and shut the door behind me, not without locking it first. As we pull out of the driveway, I look back at the house.

“Goodbye!”—I say to myself. 

***

The car ride seems endless. The dark road stretches out into another world. I’m disoriented, as I look around. Outside the world is dead asleep. Only a few lonely cars creep along the streets, with their lights aglow. My mind starts to imagine fantastic scenarios of heroically escaping from these treacherous strangers. But I drift in and out of consciousness.

When we arrive at the airport, they quickly escort me inside—where it’s painfully bright. They shuffle me over the glittering white floors, over to security guards with somber smiles, and then over to Starbucks where people with inquisitive eyes glare at us. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see a girl roughly 15 or 16. She grins, when we make eye contact. Then, I remember I know her. She’d been one of my hall mates at my previous boarding school, where I’d been shipped to back in August. She gives me a warm hug, but it’s an awkward embrace. Her face is pale, as if she’s just seen a ghost. Nonetheless I smile at her, while taking my Starbucks and my escort’s impatient hand.

We make it just in time, “luckily.”

The subsequent plane ride, then bus ride, and finally car ride, seem like a blur of strange people making strange faces at me, while two strangers drag me through it all. During the car ride we stop at McDonalds, but I refuse to eat a bite. I wake up later to a brown paper bag next to me. Inside are cookies and a note from my mother, as well as a cat figurine. I eat a cookie or two and then glance at the note from my mother. I think about ripping it to shreds. In the end, I just put it back, not bothering to open it. And I realize my eyes are wet with tears.

“Is she up?” asks the man driving. 

“I think she is!” squeals the large woman 

“You know you are such a breath of fresh air to transport. All you do is just sit there. Once we had a little girl who tried to run away every chance she got, and she kept calling us nasty names in front of everyone. It was so humiliating!”

The large woman then wipes slobber from her large mouth. I wipe my nose and smear it on the car’s interior.

“Transport?”

“So, uh, where are we exactly?” I ask.          

“Edge of Colorado,” answers the man. 

“What am I doing here?” 

Silence. 

Then the large woman says, “Oh, I think you’re just visiting a school here. Didn’t your momma say you were recently expelled from your last school?” 

“Yes, but I’m not dressed to visit a school.” 

“Oh don’t worry,” the woman continues, “they’ll have everything you need.” 

I look out the window. It’s October and orange outside. It’s beautiful. I attempt to assuage my fears by telling myself to remain rational. Surely my mother knows these people. She must, to trust them taking me. I’m just visiting a school. I’ll talk some sense into her when I get back. I’ll be back, if not tomorrow then certainly the day after. I’m still technically in school. I feel better and close my eyes. When I open them again, my world around me has changed once more. 

The car had rolled up in front of a barnyard hut with caged chickens, to whom I feed the remaining cookies. When I’d finished feeding them, the man and woman had disappeared.

***

Two rather thin women are standing in front of me. They’re dressed as if they’ve been in the wilderness for months.

“Hello” one of the faces says to me. “I bet you’ve seen better days,” the other says.

They lead me into the hut. I spot a cat called Como the Kitty. I hold and pet it nervously as one of the women hands me a packet of forms to fill out. Afterwards, they strip me and make me cough and finally drug test me.

I nervously ask them, “So where’s my dorm room?”

The two women exchange a funny look, and then one of them says: “There’s no dorm room where you’re going.”

What?! It’s hard for my body or mind to feel anything at the moment, as I’d gone into utter shock after being torn out of my bed by the two strangers.

“How many days am I gonna be here?”

The shorter woman with pig-tails sighs deeply and puts a hand on my shoulder.

“Do you see that jet up there in the sky?”

She points out the hut’s window to a jet way up in the sky.

“How far away do you think it is?” 

I respond exhaustedly, “I don’t know.”

“About 8 to 10 weeks,” she says.

My initial reaction is disbelief. However, now I painfully realize that I’m not in Texas anymore, I’m not enrolled in a school anymore, and I’m not quite myself anymore.

Tears then proceed to stream down my face, and they don’t stop for the rest of the check-in.

The two women ignore my crying for the most part, too engaged in packing the camping gear I’ll need over the next several months. They assemble a sleeping bag, unfashionable clothes along with many wool socks, and a weather-proof jacket, onto a large green tarp in the center of the small room. There’s also a mat, a toothbrush, cherry flavored chap stick, and finally a drawstring bag filled with food: 3 apples, 3 oranges, 1 can of tuna, 6 tortillas, 1 jar of peanut butter, 1 block of Munster cheese, 1 bag of granola, 1 bag of trail mix, and 1 bag of oats. They wrap it all up in a big bundle and make a bunch of confusing knots so that the bundle looks like it has its own spine. They snake a black belt through the ensemble creating straps. Then they weigh the pack—55 pounds! 

“I hope they don’t expect me to carry this on my back.”

They give me a pair of long pants and a red t-shirt with one long-sleeved shirt to layer on top, as well as a heavy jacket that they strongly suggest I put on now. I lace up the brown clunky boots.

“Ready?”

They heave the bulky pack onto my shoulders. I stagger under its load and feel my body sag down to the earth. My knees buckle as I try to walk to the car to which they escort me. 

“We need to get a move on, the sun’s starting to set,” the woman with pig tails says as she squints towards the setting sun. 

When we arrive at the camp site, the first thing I notice when I step out of the car is not the icy cold wind stabbing my face or the bonfire ablaze and a circle of people huddled around it—rather I notice the sky. I look up immediately when I get out of the car. The sun had set while we’d been cruising down the border of Colorado, and I’d watched it set with growing alarm. The stars don’t look like the normal, familiar stars—not a sliver of the night sky shows through them. Rather the entire sky is illuminated by the brightest, most captivating stars I’ve ever seen. I stare at them in utter amazement and admiration but I’m also anxious about what it portends for me over the next several months—as I’m launched into the wilderness.

-Margaret Marcum

Margaret Marcum lives in Delray Beach with her two cats, Angel and Alice. She recently graduated from the MFA program in creative writing at Florida Atlantic University. Her poems have appeared in Amethyst Review, Scapegoat Review, October Hill Magazine, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and Children, Churches, and Daddies, among others. She was a finalist for the 2021 Rash Award in Poetry.