"Back to Nature" by Melinda Pouncey
Back to Nature
by Melinda Pouncey
Ethan closed his eyes and shook his head, as if the action could erase the memory of the crash. It didn’t, of course, and he opened his eyes with a groan. Tall pine trees stood all around, their needle covered branches filtering the summer sun into an array of dappled patches upon the forest floor. What should have been a relaxing vacation at his favorite cabin had turned into a nightmare.
The Alaskan wilderness was beautiful and Ethan loved it. He loved getting back to nature. Every year he and his friend Jim flew to a remote cabin situated on a small island in the middle of a lake. Pine forest surrounded the lake for over a hundred miles, providing a welcome sense of solitude from his fast-moving city life. The place was so remote it could only be reached by a pontoon plane that pulled up to a docking pier. They would be dropped off for a week of fishing and kayaking. It was the perfect place, plenty of fresh air and fish, no phones beaming nonsense into their brains 24/7. Up here, a man could think.
That’s the way things had been for ten years, and Ethan had no reason to think this year would be otherwise. He and Jim boarded the Cessna 180 with their fishing gear and one bag each. The pilot, a seasoned professional who had been running this same route for twenty years, was a mainstay they relied on. Only this year, Bernie had been in the hospital with a minor heart problem and his son was the one ferrying them to the lake.
“He’s just a kid,” Jim whispered as they boarded and Brandon did the pre-flight check.
“It’s fine. I’m sure his old man taught him everything he knows.”
The kid seemed affable enough as he slipped into the pilot seat and turned on the engine. “You guys come up here often?” he asked with a smile.
Ethan and Jim shot each other a look. “Uh, yeah, every year,” Ethan said.
“For the past ten years,” Jim put in.
“Sweet, then you must be familiar with the cabin.” The young man turned his head as he spoke.
They both nodded.
The aerial view struck Ethan as it did every year, filling his heart with a sort of primal awe. The wide expanse of trees beneath them spoke of an ancient wisdom forever out of the reach of modern man. There was something inspiring about nature in the raw, surviving by one’s own wits and strength, that awoke his masculine pride. This is how people were meant to live.
Then the engine sputtered and Brandon began flipping switches and checking dials.
“What is it?” Jim asked.
Ethan sat upright, a knot forming in his gut when Brandon said, “I’m not sure. Everything was fine…” He trailed off and black smoke flew past Ethan’s window, obscuring the view below. Then the plane dropped like a stone, crashing into the trees with a thunderous cracking of branches and crumpling of metal.
The pain of returning awareness hit Ethan like a punch in the face. Everything hurt, but the pain in his left arm was unreal. When he opened his eyes, tall pines surrounded him, their branches blotting out the morning sun. He struggled to sit up, crying out with the effort. Sharp pain shot through him with every movement and he looked down to see his arm bent at an odd angle, obviously broken.
His free hand went instinctively to his jacket pocket to fish out his cell phone, but it wasn’t there. It was in his bag. He knew from experience there was no signal up here. It’s why he came. With no phone tying him to his busy life, he could relax, truly relax, in mind as well as body.
Now Ethan regretted being so isolated. He looked around and spotted a pile of broken branches and pieces of metal some fifteen feet away. His eyes followed them up to where the plane lay broken in the arms of the big pines. He saw no sign of either Jim or Brandon, but the trunk impaling the Cessna told a story he didn’t want to imagine. The only reason he survived must be because he’d been thrown clear somehow.
He closed his eyes and shook his head, opening them with an agonized moan. With considerable effort and pain, he managed to stand. He glanced up, knowing there was no way he would be able to climb to the plane to salvage anything, and he didn’t want to see whatever sight might be awaiting him there anyway.
Ethan debated whether to start walking and try to find help or stay put and hope to be found. It had to be safer to stay, he decided. Planes didn’t disappear without someone looking for them… did they?
The trees stretched overhead, silent and eerie in the still forest, not even a breeze stirring their branches. It gave him an unsettling feeling, like he was being watched. All the trees were lined up, nearly uniform in their placement, yet he’d awakened on a small patch of open of ground. How was that even possible?
His head began to throb in time with his slowing heartbeat. He struggled to form a coherent thought but his mind filled with images of sunlight and dark soil, of the death and decay necessary to fuel new life, new growth. Ethan glanced down to see his feet buried up to his ankles in dirt. He tried to free them but the earth held him fast. “Rooted to the spot” flitted through his head. Then nothing.
With dimming sight, he saw a thin branch, bent at an odd angle, where his broken arm had been. The information had nowhere to register, nothing to perceive it, as he reached up toward the sun along with his taller, older brethren.