end

My final and probably most questionable encounter with the nature I lived with happened when I learned what I had to be afraid of. I was about 12 years old when this happened. The snow came in October, which was relatively early for where I lived. The snow was so early that people said the city should put up Christmas decorations early. I picked up snow shoeing all through the day, which wasn’t probably the best thing for me to occupy my time. I didn’t like being overheated when it’s cold out and I especially didn’t want to wear those hideous snowshoes. I got sick from doing this. My mom would always say that I’d get strep throat once every year, but I don’t think anyone ever put together that this was why it continued to happen. I had to go to the doctor, which I loved to do because that meant I could go back to whatever I was doing. They gave me medicine that I was supposed to take for around a month and a half, I think they were an antibiotic, cough syrup and something I can't remember. It's my hypothesis that these lead to some strange events of that winter. This lead to a lot of wandering away from where I was supposed to be. However, My parents never seemed to notice.

One night, I woke up at 3am. I saw something that compelled my exhausted body to understand whatever was happening. The sky was clouded so no stars showed, the snow was high as ever, but what was really amazing was that the color. Something gave everything a purple tint. I walked outside onto the ice coated driveway in my socks, underwear and winter coat to investigate. The roads and driveways were at least 2 feet sunken. The woods were the only thing I could walk to without stomping through snow. I had the thought that something could be causing this in the woods. I walked down to the beginning of the entrance and see deer on it. It seemed that they were a bit confused about the snow as well. I walked up to them thinking I could ask them what went on. Half way there I slipped on the slightly purple ice and scared the deer deep into the woods. After peeling my frozen socks off of the ice, I went back to the beginning of the trail, head pounding yet also light headed. I was cold but started feeling hot. I saw the deer jumping, skipping, prancing away towards the same direction I sometimes went to walk (or snowshoe, rather).
I felt something wet and cold dripping down my neck and back. I assumed it was snow, but it might have been blood. I sat down. My head started to hurt a lot. It started to hurt so much that could forget about the pain, like I’d crossed its threshold, like I'd defeated it. I thought that I stopped hurting because of some amazing discovery to science or that I'd reached nirvana. I felt wonderful, like I was about to get the key to New York City. There was a purple parade with purple elephants and gymnasts doing thousand-turned back-flips and roaring purple trumpets and bright moving monuments and purple confetti falling from purple space all in my honor. My mother and father and all of my family and friends were there and cheering for me. They were all so proud. I soaked up the dream for as long as I could, until my trance began to fade. I saw a glimmer of light in my eye. The light would shine through to my eyes no matter what blocked it. It brought me back to the cold reality I was in. I thought it looked familiar. Peaking out of the woods was the light on what was previously Dominic’s mailbox. I wanted to tell it how much I hated it until I realized that Dominic wasn't in my delusion. I walk to it, wanting to tell the lantern about. I see it. I see it a little less. It blurs. It blurs more. This white light stopped being a speck and became something like a crystalline. When you see a light cross-eyed, it sort of makes the same static blob. It blurs so much that it’s just a yellow twinkle on a purple canvas. And once I was in hearing distance what do I see? I see none other than beautiful Ms. Eggplant, the former monster of these woods, sitting on his mailbox in her purple leggings and winter coat. She told me
"The woods was never what you thought it was. It wasn't a cave hiding monsters, it wasn't a well for the dead and it certainly isn't a parade for you. Dominic and I aren't going to be around forever. You need to start seeing things for what they are.”
This was the moment I began to understand what fear was. This was my Lorax moment. I knew that if it wasn’t me who saw things for what they were then I'd ever see things for what they truly were.