The Tree Top Actors

Chapter 1

The vibrant autumn leaves crunched under Jaiden’s feet, breaking the peaceful silence of the forest. She felt a silence as well, but not a peaceful one, a hopeless silence that made her soul ache. Her eyes fixed forward on a large oak tree in the distance, towering over the other trees, like an old spinster of a teacher to her classroom. Jaiden felt nothing but the slight wind biting at her cheeks and ears, and the round bottle of pills her cold fingers clenched to. The name on the bottle was unpronounceable, but Jaiden knew it was the same magical pills her mother had used to fall into the ultimate sleep, forever escaping the bitter hypocrisy of their world. Jaiden knew it would only be moments before she joined her. She let her mind wander.

Life just seems to hand me all the wrongs cards at one time. If I had been accepted to the drama team, maybe I would have found an escape. Drama On stage, I can be a crazed medieval lover, simple farm girl, mischievous fairy, or whoever I want. She can melt into her character until nothing remains of myself.

Jaiden learned a different kind of acting off the stage- the kind that her mother had pressured her to do as soon as they stepped out of the car into the parking lot of the church her dad pastored. The kind of acting that drove her to put a smile on, answer in short, polite rehearsed answers when folks asked her how she was doing in school or how come her brother Todd wasn’t there again. Her mother was a great teacher in this area; she always played the perfect part of a southern dignified beauty, each curl always in place, her bright red lipstick straight and her extravagant foreign looking jewelry neatly accessorizing whatever gaudy outfit she happened to come up with. Jaiden would watch her mother walk down the aisles of the large auditorium of the church, her French-tipped fingers gently touching people as she walked by, greeting them with, “How ya’ll doing? God bless you!” Complete with a toothy smile that made snow look black. People smiled back, in awe of her like she was a celebrity.

Jaiden felt like a victim of the tabloids, she knew this celebrity was really going down hill fast. She knew by the bitter silence between her parents the few moments besides Sunday morning that they were in the same room. Jaiden knew that day, the day she came home to see her mother sitting on the couch, still in her pajamas her eyes glued to the local news showing her father and their familiar church, that the acting was over.

The memories of that day flooded Jaiden’s mind like a tsunami. There was no going back, no rewinding and fixing what she had done. Her Aunt Carol did her best to try to tell Jaiden it wasn’t her fault that her mother had died, that it was her father’s own actions that had pushed his wife over the edge. But Jaiden knew that wasn’t fully the truth, and she pushed thoughts of her aunt out of her head as she walked forward into the forest.

The closer Jaiden got to the oak tree, she lost herself in thought.

I am far enough into the forest so no one will find me right away. I don’t get how anyone could be selfish enough to kill themselves in their own home…She had to have known I would have been the one to find her. Did she have any idea how it would lead me to do the same thing she did? At least I have the decency to go into the woods were Aunt Carol won’t have to find me. At least here I am alone… Or am I?

Suddenly, Jaiden had the strange sense that someone was watching her like when you walk in a room and you can literally feel someone’s gaze resting on you. She looked around but saw nothing. She approached the base of the tree trunk and sat down, her back pressing against the rough bark. She peered down at the bottle lay gripped in her left hand. The lid came off with a little struggle, those child-proof caps always made her felt like an idiot. She poured several pills in her hand and studied the smooth round blue thing like it was a creature under a microscope. Funny how something so small could do so much damage. It wouldn’t take very many to do the trick; Jaiden’s five foot three skinny frame could get blown away by the next gust of wind like a leaf. She raised one of the pills up to eye level, rubbing it in circles between her thumb and index finger. She wasn’t sure why she was delaying.

Maybe I am not in as much of a hurry to die as I thought I was.

Or maybe it was because the eerie sense she wasn’t alone had just gotten stronger.

“Hushhhhhhhhhh.” A whisper caught Jaiden’s ear, and she looked around confused.

It must be the wind.

to be continued...