Week 2 Storytelling: The Forest

Jeff loved spending his weekends hunting. As soon as deer season opened in the fall, the local townsfolk often spotted Jeff leaving for the woods in the morning and not returning until he had bagged his quarry. So many people in his local town considered him to be the best hunter that, even though Jeff was a humble man, he began to believe it himself. Jeff loved when people would ask for advice about hunting. He enjoyed the feeling of knowing the most about a topic and the satisfaction it brought. Over the years, Jeff began to develop hubris when it came to hunting. He truly believed he could do no wrong.   

On what seemed to be a regular Saturday, Jeff had driven out to his deer lease. In a far corner the weekend before, he had picked up the tracks of a group of deer moving between a thick brush area and a local stream, and he wanted to investigate further. Climbing into a tree stand and shouldering his rifle, Jeff waited for the deer to move under him on the way to their morning drink. He had waited for close to an hour, silent and still, when he heard the sound of fall leaves being crushed underfoot. Turning slowly, Jeff laid his sights on the bush where the noise had come from. As soon as he saw movement, Jeff fired. In response he heard a sharp exhalation and the sound of dead weight hitting the ground. Figuring he had had another successful hunt, Jeff slowly climbed down from his tree stand and walked over to investigate his kill.  

What Jeff saw before him immediately made him sick to his stomach. A man, rifle slung around his shoulder and binoculars hanging from his neck, lay dead before him with a bullet hole in his stomach. Before Jeff had fully processed what had happened, another sound erupted from the brush behind him. Jeff turned and saw another tall man with a beard emerging from the brush, and then decided to run. While sprinting back to his truck, Jeff figured he only had hours of freedom before the police caught up with him. Back at his house, he began to get his affairs in order and get his story straight. He found the number for his lawyer and debated whether the jury would understand how even a great hunter like himself could make a mistake. However, no one came.  

Jeff spent the next two days locked in his home agonizing about what he had done before he was forced to venture out for food. He picked up a newspaper while in line at the cashier and saw that the investigation into who had shot the man was ongoing, but the police had no suspects. The man Jeff had shot was from the next county over, a town about 30 minutes away. 

"Crazy, ain't it?" said the cashier, startling Jeff. 

"Yeah... I'm just glad it didn't happen to me" was all Jeff managed to meekly reply.  

Jeff returned home and decided to try and get on with his life. There was no one who knew that he went out that way that morning, and he left no evidence there. Jeff was free, but he was racked with guilt every day for the next year. Deciding he couldn't take it anymore, Jeff returned to the old deer lease to look for some form of forgiveness or closure. While kneeling down near the bush, a shot rang out. Jeff's corpse slumped forward. A tall man with a beard stepped out from behind a tree, and walked away.  

Author's Note: My story is inspired by the tale of King Dasharatha's Karma. In this story, King Dasharatha accidentally kills a young man while he is hunting because of his own hubris and confidence in his abilities as a hunter. Shortly afterwords, King Dasharatha is discovered by the man's parents. 
I made a few changes to my story. None of my characters are royalty, of course. Additionally, the reaping of Karma occurs much sooner than in the original story of King Dasharatha. The King is a young man when this happens in his life and the events related to it through Karma are what kills him as an old man. However, Jeff and King Dasharatha both share similar attitudes about their own abilities as hunters. As a note, hubris is an excessive amount of self-confidence. Also, much like in the original story, the details about who Jeff killed are significant. Both the person who Dasharatha and Jeff killed are somehow related to their deaths. King Dashartha kills and loses a son for example.The story is about Jeff, and his decisions. 
I chose the image I did because I felt it conveyed the atmosphere I was trying to emulate. It was dark under the trees, but not so pitch black that no one could be expected to see. The readers should understand that what happened is Jeff's fault. Part of my motivation for this was to illustrate the fact that Jeff was not necessarily a bad person, but the consequences were the fault of his own actions. Jeff could have easily replaced the Bearded Man in this story, and he would still be doing a bad thing, but the reader can understand why it happened.  

Bibliography: Indian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie, published in 1913. Link.

Image: Image of a forest, courtesy of Travels with Tricia