A Scar Upon the Earth – A Short Story
Julia lived in a rural town in the mountains. It was unassuming enough, small, quaint, and it didn’t receive many visitors. That was how the locals liked it. They didn’t want an influx of tourists or sightseers coming to see the Chasm.
The Chasm, it was a mile wide and impossibly, unfathomably deep. No one knew from whence it came. It had been there since long before Julia was born. The adults pointedly ignored every question Julia had about it. They gave no answers.
The Chasm was dark, with shadow obscuring its bottom-most depths. When Julia was younger, she and her friends used to drop stones into it. No sound ever came from it hitting the bottom, if it ever did.
Still, the Chasm didn’t affect their life too much. Julia went to school and played with her friends and watched movies just like she assumed other people did. The one small difference was the tourists and hikers. Tourists were uncommon, with only one or two a month. But, they did provide business to the shops.
When outsiders came, the adults gave Julia and the other kids a task: to keep the outsiders away from the Chasm.
“Ay! You said you’d show me around?” It was one of the hikers/mountain climbers. The parents would vet the hikers and then send them along with one of the teens. It was a way to keep the teens out of trouble and to give them some work, all while keeping outsiders from the Chasm.
The few people that went out of their way to visit Julia’s village always fascinated her. After all, Julia’s small rural town, while slightly mountainous and filled with natural beauty, wasn’t exactly a well-known place to go, being very out of the way.
“Ay! Julia? That’s your name, right?” the man called again.
“Yes. Sorry.” Julia said quickly. She had a job to do.
“Anyway, someone told me that you’d be able to show me around.”
“Yes, of course. This way!” Julia pointed off and to the left. “There’s an alpine stream that is beautiful this time of year. There are also some caves in that direction. I’m assuming that’s what the gear in your backpack is for, right?”
“Yes, yes, of course.” The man said hurriedly. He then reached to his back and felt the burlap sack with his left hand, as if making sure it was still full.
“So let’s go.”
The Chasm may not have affected people’s routines much, but it certainly affected people’s lives. I was always, irrevocably, unstoppably, inevitably there. At all hours of the day, it weighed heavy on Julia’s mind. It drew both her gaze and thoughts, even when it was blocked or obscured from view.
“What are you looking at?”
“Oh, nothing, I’m just thinking.” Julia delivered this lie as smoothly as if she had been telling it for years. In fact, she had. She’d been telling it ever since she showed a tourist around.
“That’s nice.”
The Chasm continued to be ever-present on Julia’s mind. Whenever she looked in its direction, she thought that she could see glowing. Or that she could hear an unearthly choir. It was beautiful in a tainted sort way, in the same way that she imagined war could beautiful.
Her mind was occupied by the Chasm. So, it was a good thing that she had walked this particular path many times before, like a goat being lead to pasture. Her feet acted of their own accord and, before she knew it, she was at the alpine stream.
The man took off his backpack and placed it carefully on the ground, making sure Julia could see it. “Could you watch this for me?”
“Sure.”
The man took a swim in the stream while Julia stared in the direction the Chasm. It drew her every thought. Eventually, it was time for them to walk back down to town.
“Why did you become a hiker like this? Why are you here?”
The hiker turned his head with a sudden jolt. “I felt a calling to come here. As if the woods were speaking to me. You ever get that feeling?”
Julia turned back to the Chasm. “Yeah, I do.”
The rest of their walk was in silence.
Julia helped the hiker down to the small motel where the other visitors slept whenever they came. The man took his backpack off and placed it near the door. Julia said good-bye and went to her own house, into her bed.
Where she dreamed.
All of her dreams centered on the Chasm. It was so unequivocally, irrevocably there. Julia couldn’t help but dwell on it, even in her sleep. As she dreamed, she heard the same unearthly choir, this time louder. She knew instinctually that there were words, though they were words that she could not decipher. They were calling her.
Suddenly, her eyes burst open. Julia sat up in bed, sweat beading down her face. She thought back to her conversation with the hiker and knew what she had to do.
Quietly, she crept downstairs and out the door. She walked calmly down the street. She walked silently towards the motel. Once there she grabbed the backpack. Julia peered inside, making sure that the climbing gear was there. It was.
Once she exited the motel, Julia walked towards the Chasm and beheld its tainted beauty. Wordlessly, Julia pulled the climbing gear out of the pack. She stared down into its depths. She knew that had gone too far to back out. The only way was down. So, Julia hauled her self down the Chasm. She was focused and didn’t even blink when the Chasm sealed itself up behind her.
“Where is my payment?” The hiker stood, voice hoarse.
A figure, cloaked in shadow, passed him a gilded chest. When opened it was filled with cash.
“Always one for theatrics, huh?” The hiker said with a broken smile. He sighed.
“How long will I have to do this? How long will I lead these young kids to their-” but he could not finish.
For the first time, the man wreathed in shadow spoke, revealing all too many shining teeth. “One way or another, you’re in this for life.”
