An Echo in the Forest
Originally published at https://minervarising.com on May 11, 2023.
It was a spur-of-the-moment camping trip. Normally, you plan your outdoor adventures well in advance. You want to gaze up at the stars and not hear the whoosh of a toilet flush nearby. Of course, there are spots where there are no toilets, but this requires a shovel, and you’re not that kind of camper. Because you booked it late, your spot is in the center of the campground. Trees are sparse, and privacy is nonexistent. You exchange wry grins with your spouse.
You hope there won’t be a storm of yellow jackets like that time you had to haul ass into the tent to stave off being eaten alive. Then again, you did book a site at Yellow-Jacket Campground. You hope there won’t be a gaggle of girls knocking back whisky and video-calling their crushes. You can’t imagine that another family will park a speaker three feet from your tent and play Mariachi music all day long. Finally, you hope that when people in RVs bust out their cinema-sized TV screens, they will at least have the common decency to haul them back in when the stars come out. You hope this time that you will experience an actual camping trip. One that offers respite from the chaos that has consumed you for the last nine years.
As nearby campfires begin to peter out, the family next to you keeps theirs roaring. You hold hope that they…
