Dead Leaves, Dirty Ground

He had told us he was a clown. A lot of us were too afraid to go with him; they were the smart ones. But we were the ones whose youths had not yet outgrown our imaginations. Here was a man who had promised to show us worlds we had never seen, events that could never take place. He wanted to teach us the things our teachers never would, never could. Never could know.

All we had to do was look into the picture. Follow the straight line. The magician of all tears was ready to obfuscate our fears, and all he told us to do was to follow the straight line. To close one eye and step to the side.

"And ignore the funny noises the trees make at night there." And so he took us. And so we walked. And so, his straight line led us to a grim pathway in the woods, the pathway our mommies and daddies had made us promise never to ask about. It was the pathway where no leaves lived yet all leaves eventually blew.

Yet here we were, following the straight line. "If you have any fears about this path, just close one eye and step to the side."

A long way down, we passed by another pathway, one leading from ours and down into somewhere where the snow always fell. "That's not for you. That's where grown-ups go when they don't want to close one eye, when they can't step to the side."

And here I was, about to go down that path too many years later.