A trip to the forest has surprising effects on author Kevin rogers For he begins to doubt his own sanity.
So, the story begins like this: I”m standing by a wrecked plane drinking soda, passenger seats are scattered across the clearing, the sky shows an assortment of black birds and my boy is gone, but that doesn”t have to be a drawback!
The quest log nags me to rescue him, but I”m enough of a parent myself that I know half an hour”s peace and quiet can be nice, so I”m not going to look for him now. How many times had I said, don”t run so far away. Fate would cut his hair now.
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Island of the Mad
As I finish the soda and have a quick taste of the chicken tikka from the next seat, I decide to look around a bit. GlobalESportNewsEditor Thomas had told me The Forest was such a shocker, but since I think I”m the only sane one anyway, of course I have no problem at all sharing an island with crazy people.
I cross the forest as one crosses forests, carefully and at the striding gait of a heron. Beside me, a hare lifts its head from the grass, with a look on its face as if it has just realised that it has repressed something terrible from its childhood. I slay him with a sated, satisfied feeling.
It all goes super-easy. I separate the fur from the flesh, which comes off reluctantly, with the sound of Velcro slowly opening. Next to me, a man leans against the tree and watches me. He has a tennis ball in his mouth and his eyes are blind and white as spider eggs. His tent rattles between the scrawny trees.
With the meat I cross the clearing, past a shallow pool of brackish water, next to it kneels a man woven into his tennis racket, which reminds me of that joke during Corona: that you can finally meet people without problems again, but find people without problems.
Water & further dreariness
From the cliffs I look out over the grey sea, which foams with rage and murmurs and looks around on all sides. I put my axe away and try my hand at descending. Too steep! A suspicion arises in me that it might be a good idea to swim up to the small island off the coast. I would hate to spend the night in the open forest. As in any forest in this country, I suspect people everywhere, suddenly standing among the pines, in windbreaker jackets, glow strips on their helmets, frantically scratching for mushrooms in a stooped posture.
On the island I would probably have my peace. I swim across and light a fire, and the fire crackles, which is what fire does, and soon I can barely see the other shore over the orange peaks, just the huts lined up on the sand like shark fins, and the sparks strike up to a black moon looking down on me eons old, and then I fall asleep.
The camp
The next morning I gather my things and wade across to the other shore. The beach is grey and empty. The water seems cold. The quest log says I should look for the other passengers who were travelling with me, but I have enough to do here already and I”m certainly not doing the airline”s job as well.
I collect branches and leaves to build a shelter. I know what I need for it without a quest log. Two very good friends who have both played too much The Forest and Raft are currently rebuilding their settlement in my garden. So I know a) that you need twigs and logs and fibre to do it, and b) that playing too much The Forest in real life hits full on mental health. GaLieGrü at this point!
I find a tent city in the woods and can”t imagine getting lost, while having a good view, can hide the fact that you have woodlice in your hair. Most people just got a bit close to the sun, I”ve had that suspicion for a while.
I wonder what my boy is doing. Notice more and more how the emptiness and melancholy of the island is getting to me. I”m still happy to be alone, but not so consistently anymore.
As I try to manoeuvre a log across the sea to my island by bumping it, I look over to the cliffs and feel like I”m sitting in my own double-slit experiment: When I”m not looking, something is standing there watching me. And when I look, it”s gone.
Towards evening I get hungry and meet a seagull and slay it with the seriousness of a late caller.
The light is disputed. The sea looks choppy. I try to harvest sharks, but sharks can”t be harvested, and somehow that”s also an action there on the beach that doesn”t make sense at all.
I cross the forest in the striding gait of a heron. A hare lifts its head out of the grass. I slay it. I cut off pieces of the meat, over the fire, on my island. Off the rugged coast with the rocky cliffs.
Harvest sharks
Wake up the next morning feeling completely shattered. Is that what makes The Forest so special? I still feel like I”m the only sane one, but I”m not sure.
I call across to the coast. I wade. I slay two sea turtles under species protection, and try again to harvest the shark. While I make a rag around my axe to set it on fire later, maybe it will even attract ships, I see the gaunt figure on top of the cliffs for the first time. Because of the distance, I don”t know if she really sees me.
She stands there for a few seconds, could be a woman, could be a man, then she turns around and disappears just as quickly. I decide to go after her and cross the forest, stepping silently over rubbish for a while.
I wonder if I even have a boy, or if there never was: a boy. Maybe one day I”d wake up and realise that the one on my arm is actually a turnip. And that I celebrate turnip birthdays and turnip kindergarten and turnip enrolment. And all over my flat, the turnips would be sitting at set tables, and I would have sewn them little dresses, and their hair, which is straw, would be dishevelled. And they look at me attentively; their eyes from right to left.
I take a deep breath and try to keep my wits about me. It”s a thin line that can only be crossed once. Not so happy to be alone anymore. What was the last sensible thing I did? And what more to be afraid of – that someone will come, or that no one will ever come again?
A woman, she has breasts
While eating berries from bushes that are not edible and ruin my stomach, I break through the undergrowth, confused, timeless and aimless. I wander through empty huts and look at the puzzles of light on the ceiling that penetrate through the roofs. Listen as if in a trance to the clacking of skulls hanging on strings. In Bali, people would leave a lot of money for this.
Noticing that I am covered in blood from the sharks, I wade into a pool and wash myself copiously. There”s that woman again. I wonder what she thinks: that I am one of them or that I am me?
It must be a woman, she has breasts. Her long hair hangs dripping wet in long, dirty strands from her head. I hurry over. She hurries away. I hurry after her joyfully, arms outstretched. She flees as fast as she can into the undergrowth, me after her. I feel free and joyful like a child rushing across a meadow. Wait, I call.
I slay her with a rich, satisfied feeling.
You must never be afraid of the murderer. The murderer must always be afraid of you. Because what my friends here don”t know: I”ve met real cannibals before, 2020 and 2021 that is.
I sat in visiting rooms of various long-sentence prisons in the debatable light of the overhead lamp and interviewed convicted and non-convicted cannibals. In other words, those who were suspected. They were nice and tidy for the most part, and only when I asked one of them how the head actually got into the pot was there this short, piercing glint. As if the pupils, including the iris, turned black for a second, like the moon over my island. And then he said: He just couldn”t stand the looks of his victim any more. Which now, on my island, seems totally coherent to me.
I wrote Peter an email asking if I could publish this anecdote in his youth magazine. He writes back: “Okay. As long as you don”t write that eating people is totally cool.” I really wonder where he gets that idea. Do I give that impression? That would explain why everyone on the island looks at me so familiarly, like I”m one of them.
Do I have tennis balls in my pocket?
Yes. In my inventory.
Why?
French fry yellow grass
I wash off the rest of the blood (is it from the boy?) and go in search of the child. Is there any valid proof that I own children? I don”t have any family photos or anything. Yes, I do. Stuck to my backpack. All the same. Save your boy, says the quest log.
I”m determined now. The forest lies there like an open book. Ducked, I follow the paths I know. I will save my boy, whatever the cost. At the edge of a small underbrush path, I find a shallow waterfall, a gaunt man and woman standing beside it. I stalk and try to hit them from behind.
Just as I have the woman on her knees, another attacks me from behind and knocks me unconscious. My last look is that of a field hare who is just realising that he has repressed something terrible from his childhood and now lacks any time to come to terms with it.
I”m being pulled through tall grass. I see arms holding me and legs passing through the grass. In the striding gait of a heron. I am hanging from the ceiling. It is dark. I hang from the ceiling like my real cannibal”s victim hung from the basement ceiling. Pale and upside down.
With the axe, I struggle free. I land on the floor. I find several maps, a compass, a spear and a note in the dark, slippery bowels of the mountain: “A jealous god punishes the guilt of parents against their children.”
At that moment I understand that it is not I who have abandoned my son. It is my son who has abandoned me. I stand there stunned for a few seconds. Then something jumps out at me from the darkness. Forgive me, I whisper.
