October 16, 2012 - Cody Presny

I don't know how to interpret today's events, because for me, I saw many of
them through a Vale of fog. I got about two and a half hours of sleep last
night and I found it extremely difficult to make my way out of my sleeping
bag. We ate breakfast then packed the van and trailer; we were leaving
Yosemite after five arduous days of hustle and bustle. We took off and first
made a stop at the El Capitan viewing field. After seeing a few climbers
toil up the massive rock face, we were off again, this time headed towards
Mariposa Grove. When we arrived, the group was dumbfounded by the size and
sheer gnarnis of the Grove. We were walking through the grove when something
strange happened, I heard singing. I heard the most beautiful melody sung
in the most angelic tone, but when I looked around to see where it was
coming from, I found myself alone on the trail. I turned again and saw nothing,
no one was there, it was only me and one of the large sequoias. The singing
continued and as I drew near to the mammoth of a tree, it grew louder. Closer
and closer louder and louder; the once soft and somber tone was now blaring in
my ears, nothing else could be heard, or felt, or anything for that matter.
I wanted to turn back but I couldn't, I had lost control of my body. My feet
continued to shuffle forward, and my ears felt as if they were being crushed
between two granite slabs.
Someone make this stop, please I beg of you, I
thought incapable of forming words. I stopped moving at the base of the
giant, I fell to my knees, and the song seized. Silence fell over the grove.
I felt a thousand stares pierce me like sharpened daggers through a
warm stick of butter. The silence was deafening, even more so than the song
that echoed only moments before. I began to raise my glance upwards towards
the crown of the great giant. I could only stare, immobilized by some
greater force as I witnessed the great beast draw nearer. The silence was
broken by the sound pf roots being ripped from the flesh of the earth. The
great tree was falling, and it was to take me with it. I closed my eyes and
feel nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing, certainly I must be dead,
crushed under the weight if a thousand trees. I open my eyes to find myself
in the back of Van 99, it was all a dream, and a very cliché ending.
Goodnight.