Forgetting

Photo: Christine Morrison

The newspaper headline saddened him.

‘Why can’t human beings learn from their mistakes?’ he asked himself.

As if the answer to his question had risen from the depths, a boyhood memory came back to him …

His father had warned him, ‘Watch where you put your feet!’

And now he was running. Down a track through the pine forest. Watching out for roots that could trip him up. Roots that were as hard and round as the sinews of a blacksmith hammering out the red-glowing steel of a battle-axe in some gloomy underground pit.

He was running fast – someone … something … might be waiting to ambush him from behind the trees.

Above him, a strip of blue. 

Sunlight warming the rocks.

Running, he didn’t see the adder.

When his foot thumped down on it, the snake sprang upwards like a piece of rubber tube, twisting around.

He didn’t feel the bite he was expecting.

He didn’t dare look back.

He kept on running down the track.

Running and forgetting.

(Thanks to Katie Cooper for her advice.)