Walking Through a Cliche
I was all alone. For a while, I thought the only sounds I could hear were the sounds coming from my feet: the sounds of crunching leaves, or disturbed dirt, of my crocs slapping against my soles. But that wasn't true, there was plenty of sound all around me. The sound of birds as they launched off branches. The sound of trees rubbing together, like boats jostling on the harbour. The sound of --
-- Something went snap right beside me.
I froze, turned, stared. Was that a human shape in the shadows? Was somebody watching me? Was I --
-- Something flew into the air and I relaxed. I was just a bird ...
I was walking through a cliche.
Honestly, how many times have you read in a book or seen in a film just what I described? The sudden twig snapping, giving away either the hero or their pursuer. How many times has a fantasy troupe rested on a fallen log? How many fallen logs are even in a forest?
Turns out: thousands!
I've been walking through my forest most nights whilst I still have light, and it struck me last night just how cliched the entire thing was. There really are a lot of fallen trees all around. Everywhere I looked, there was a tree lying on its side. Sometimes they blocked the path. Sometimes it was just a branch, but the branches can get big down here, so they were the size of trees. Some had been lying there for years, had mushrooms growing out of them. Some were fresh. A few weren't there yesterday.
So the forest is always changing, but living among the trees myself it does give me pause seeing so many of them fallen. I feel like I'm a random dice roll from being flattened at any one moment. After all, some of these trees are huge, mighty things. Where they have fallen and pulled up their roots has changed the landscape. Their roots become little hills and where they stood became little valleys. Walking past a huge tree, thinking of the sound it would make as it fell ... terrifying.
(A side note: I've been woken up by a tree falling right beside me. Do you know what it sounds like? It sounds like the Earth has diarrhea. Just an endless, squelching sound of shifting dirt and then far too much noise.)
But the twig snap. That's not real, is it? Er, yes, it is. And it happens just as it does in the movies. You'll be walking along, all alone, not a care in the world, when -- snap! -- you pause, you twist around, you stare at nothing ... and then it really is a bird that takes off, into the sky. For a moment, I feel like a wandering minstrel, trudging towards an inn where I can pass a few coins and enjoy an ale, on the lookout for orcs and goblins and highway men.
What a wonderful feeling!
So there's no point to this other than "cliches become cliches for a reason", but I can't help but wonder what other cliches are actually real.
I shall go look for them.