Forest By The River example essay topic

All I can see is white. Clean, pristine, sterile white. I hear beeping. It almost drives me insane.

I stare at the ceiling. Mottled white tiles interrupted by the glow of fluorescent lights. I listen to their voices, but they are muffled. Like there is a curtain between us. I only hear snatches of the conversation. "What happened to him?

What is wrong with my husband?" I am sorry, Ma " am We are still running tests. We don't know what is wrong. He was like this when the chopper air lifted him in"But he was with his brother. Bush walking. Where is his brother?

Is he here too, Doctor?"No. They found him alone in the national park. Crawling on all fours. He was muttering incoherently. It is lucky they found him". The voices fade again into the recesses of my mind.

"Come on mate. Hurry up! Get a move on!" Joe calls back down the mountain. I call for my brother to wait for me, but as usual, he charges ahead. I struggle up the rock face, searching for footholds. I scrape my knee.

It stings. I reach up and grasp a fern dangling down, inviting me to grab hold. I heave myself up and finally reach the top. Joe is there sitting on a fallen log, just waiting for me to catch up. Damn Asthma. It always makes me slower.

"Glad you could join me", he laughs, teasingly. I take a seat next to him and stare out across the valley, trying to catch my breath. The brochures were right. This truly is one of the most amazing views I have ever seen. It is perfect.

Dense, green huddles of trees, broken only by the occasional sparkling river or camping clearing. The sounds are magnificent as well. Birds twittering tunefully, not squawking like they seemed to in the city. Absolute peace and tranquillity. The doctor shines his tiny torch in my eyes.

A nurse comes over and adjusts my head. I try to say something but my tongue is stuck. She smiles at me as if I'm a child and pats me on the head. Then she says something in that sing-song voice that people tend to use around little babies. I lash out. Kicking, punching, screaming, crying, all at the same time.

I fight with the sheets. Let me out! I try to get up but I feel claws pushing me back down. They roll me over and I feel a sharp sting in my backside. My vision blurs again. It is like I am underwater.

Drowning. I struggle to move. To raise my arm. To get some attention. But I can't and I feel myself slipping back.

Back there... Which way? I ask myself. Which path did he take?

I look around for a clue to point me in the direction of my brother, but the forest gives me none. It just stays still. Not moving. Not helping me. I choose the left path as it looks the most trampled, hoping that this is what Joe decided upon. Why does my asthma always have to slow me down?

Why did I tell Joe he should go ahead? The sun sends it rays down upon me and warms the back of my neck as I walk along the dusty, brown dirt path. I scuff my feet and the dust swirls up around me, shrouding me in its cloud. I cough. The dust eventually settles. There is still no sign of my older brother.

Do I go back? Or do I just trust that both paths end up at the same place. I choose to trust the path I am on. I continue along this trail for a while. I stroll past an owl, asleep in the crook of a spindly, deformed branch of a Eucalypti. Its eyes are closed and its head is tilted away from the sun.

A wallaby darts in front of me. It studies the sleeping owl and satisfied it is asleep, the wallaby hops off. I stand still and watch it bound down the hillside and disappear into a clump of some of the tallest tress I have ever seen and I decide to follow him. He seems to know where he is going. Perhaps that is the way to the river. The brochure said that watching the forest by the river come alive after sunset was breathtaking.

My eyes jerk open. How long was I out for? I am panting like an animal and I struggle to catch my breath. I try to lean forward but there are metal claws clutching at my wrists and ankles, tying me to the white bed. My eyes well up with tears. They trickle down, turning my face into a stream.

I can't seem to stop them. I remember what I saw when I reached the river and tremble. The horror! I cry out loud and the nurse comes running.

I am quivering and sobbing uncontrollably. She brushes against my face and I scream. A doctor appears and my backside stings again. It is dark now. The sun has gone to sleep, but the forest hasn't. It is wide awake.

I scramble through the forest. Dodging this way and that like a slalom skier. I run frantically through the towering trees. Their misshapen, twisted limbs stretch towards me beseechingly like the claws of a bird. I see faces in their bark. Knobbly faces of old men, craggy and creased.

Smirking at me. Laughing at me with their evil cackles. Scrutinizing me with their cold, grey, unforgiving eyes. I am surrounded, trapped by the gangs of trees who thwart my every move. I stumble blindly out into a clearing, relieved to have reached the river. But that feeling evaporates when I open my eyes.

Oh the horrors of it all! Bone! Blood! Flesh!

Bodies strewn everywhere. Or what I assume were once bodies. The river water, no longer sparkling blue, is now blood red. I am overcome by the smell. The pungent smell of decaying flesh.

Of death. I gag. My throat starts to tighten and I gasp for breath. I spin wildly trying to escape the repulsion but everywhere I turn more horrors greet me.

Possums, their tails still curled tight around branches but blood dripping from where their heads once were. Clumps of fur sprinkled about like the toys from a toddler's toy box. Feet, eyes, necks and ears litter the forest floor. Blood, pouring out from the scratches on the bodies of wallabies. I look up and see fish in the trees.

Fish! In trees! As if they jumped out, trying to escape the river. What has caused this horror?! I stumble back into the forest and slump against the trunk of the tree. I close my eyes, hoping to God that when I open them I am somewhere else.

Anywhere else! I get up and start to run. I run and run. Past the leering old men. Past the claws of their branches, their fingers brushing menacingly against my face as I scuttle past. I run away from the river and its horrors.

I run away from the cause of the devastation. I leap fallen trees and roots sticking up from the ground. I bound across loose stones and through the scraggy undergrowth. I stumble and fall.

I hear my ankle snap. I lie on the forest floor as the dust swirls around me. I clutch at my ankle screaming with pain. The forest is silent around me. I close my eyes again and pray that what ever got the animals doesn't get me. 'Hoo-out.

Hoo-out. ' What was that? My eyes dart around frantically trying to scan the surrounding forest. Nothing.

'Hoo-out. Hoo-out. ' Then, a sudden flutter of wings and all hell breaks loose. They descend upon me.

I feel tearing. The tearing of my skin as hundreds of beaks and claws scrape at me. The piercing squawks as the birds squabble over my flesh. I shriek. I try to bat the owls away but they just won't leave. I search their beady yellow eyes for some sign of my fate, but I receive none.

I feel myself slipping, losing consciousness. But then, like a saviour sent from above, a few rays of the early morning sun pierce through the foliage and illuminate the forest floor where I am lying. The owls flee in a flurry of feathers and claws, screeching their devilish cry. I waste no time. I attempt to stand but am overcome by a wave of nausea as I try to put weight on my ankle. I fall to the ground and crawl.

I crawl as fast as humanly possible. Tears pouring out my eyes, I begin to pray. I am still praying when I reach the road and see the headlights coming towards me. I am roused by their voices murmuring faintly in the corner of my room. "Doctor, do you know yet what happened to my husband?"No, not yet I'm sorry to say. It appears he is suffering a mental trauma, but we still don't understand what from.

Who knows what he saw or how he came to be like this? Only he can say."Will he ever return to normal?"That, I cannot predict. The forest can do some strange things to people". The tears well up and start to flow again.