This is a translation. I primarily write fiction in Dutch. You can read the original here.

Dead Wood

Dusk is falling. As it has been all day. Overhead hangs one of those grey snow skies that seems to descend ever further. In the misty atmosphere, the forest is no more than a collection of leafless trunks and branches that point aghast in all directions. It refuses to get dark, though the light seems to be departing constantly.

A man staggers onward. In the tangle of trunks, there is barely a path to follow. Sometimes his hand swings out because he loses his balance and almost falls. Sometimes he reaches into the plastic bag in his other hand and scatters thick seeds around himself in wide, sweeping motions. He is off balance more often than he scatters. The seeds ricochet loudly against the trunks before they fall to the ground. Aside from his faint panting, it is the only sound.

He hasn't seen a human being in days. Yet some have been here. He is sure of it. Their bodies, their cheering, and their sweating have disappeared, but you can feel that they were there. The impressions still resonate in the bushes and echo between the trunks, just as a park bench can still feel warm from the sun, even as rain clouds pass through the sky. It feels as if they could return at any moment. If they wanted to.

He has no sense of time, but it must be hours later when he suddenly halts. A clearing. Before him unfolds an enigmatic clearing. Most certainly people have been here, because they have left behind an entire funfair. One of those old-fashioned ones, with rides made of rough wooden planks and blinking colored lightbulbs. A small wooden city that sleeps.

They are still blinking, those lights. Where does the electricity come from?

The sight is so unexpected that he stops scattering the seeds. Delighted, he walks onto the grounds. Decked-out stalls, half-full trash cans. Everything appears to have been abandoned while the party was still in full swing. Maybe there is someone left. Somewhere.

Motionless, the rides tower above him. Silent and breathless, like frozen life, alternately lighting up in blue and red glows. There are smaller stalls too. A shooting gallery, a ball toss. He steps into a booth next to a carousel and carefully runs his hand over the control panel. It looks as if he could just turn it on. The lights are working too, after all. But even if the machine were still good, it wouldn't work. The carousel would already be spinning before he could jump on. He walks back outside. Still dragging the plastic bag along with him.

Wandering further among the stalls. Aimless now. There is no point.

Then he suddenly sees it. There, in the corner. Life! A delicate green stem with a bright yellow flower, which seems to look at him kindly. It is not a flower, it is a sign. A sign for him.

He runs toward it. Arriving there, he cannot contain his joy. There are more of them! He sees them one by one, they form a trail. Hastily he follows it, allowing himself to be led zigzagging away from the funfair, back toward the forest where he came from. Where did they go? He will find them any moment. But... just before the first undergrowth begins, it stops.

That can't be. There must be more. Frantically he searches around, walking in ever wider circles around the last one. It is in vain. There is nothing more, the trail runs dead. Exhausted, he sinks against a trunk.

An hour later, he stands up again. In the same stumbling pace with which he arrived, he walks back into the forest. He reaches into the bag and begins to scatter. The seeds ricochet against the bare trunks once more.

For days, he continues to wonder. Where did the electricity come from?