The Wired Wilderness by Tim Sullivan

Out in the woods, something is hiding behind every tree and in every shady hollow. I don’t know what it is, but it’s there. I feel it each time I step into the woods. It’s the same in any forest of sufficient size and wildness; just hidden from my eyes is something wonderful and strange, something indescribable and sublime that we know of only through old stories and whispers. 

Today, I can sense it right away, as always. After following a trail cut through an unfamiliar expanse of forest, I veer from the path and enter the true woods. The mystical and sublime seldom loiter near established trails. Soon, I am deep in cosmopolitan forest. A street market of birds and playful squirrels shout and scream and sing to each other all around me. 

Slowly, I become aware that below the chaotic refrain is another song, more ordered than the first. Pausing, I listen intently. It’s music . . . actual music! I can discern a violin gently sawing off to my left, a flute before me, and a clarinet behind my right shoulder. The instruments seem to flow together in an arrangement I’ve never heard before. I cannot see the players; they seem just out of sight. 

Voices, beautiful and high, begin to sing out all around me. Whether belonging to women or children I cannot tell. They pronounce no words, but rather natural sound spills from them. I am mesmerized, rooted to the ground by this smooth and enthralling melody. It’s like nothing I’ve heard before, more an expression of the forest than music. I feel as though I’m in a movie and can hear the backing score. The animals, however, have taken little notice and continue their own raucous verse.  

I want to find and thank the musicians for these few moments of wonder. I start towards some of the voices and after several hundred feet see no one, the music continues but the instruments and singers have moved, swirled around me. Running now, I attempt to find the hidden fiddler. No one. A full sprint and the music sounds at the same distance as before. Are they are moving and playing at once? I dart around in a mad attempt to catch sight of one of them, any of them. I fail to find them or to notice the up-turned root, which catches my foot, though I briefly see the tree trunk as my head flies towards it. 

When next I awake, the sun is setting. The animal song continues: a different tune but still the same song. My forehead throbs horribly. In the distance, I hear that mystical song. It is fading away; the unknown nymphs or satyrs or indie performance artists have wandered off and left me. But, as I stare at the tree trunk, I notice a small hole indented by my head. Inside, adeptly hidden and adroitly camouflaged, hides a tiny, now broken, loudspeaker. 

© Tim Sullivan 

Tim recently graduated college with a fancy degree in business administration and has spent most of his time since desperately attempting to find employment in that vein. A dearth of success has led him to start writing flash fiction in between sending out resumes. He also has a cat.

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