Among The Conifers

 

Point A to Point B. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. From poor to rich. But unless you suffer from Alzheimer’s, you never forget. Never forget you were poor. You can walk all around your ritzy neighborhood; five-bedroom three car garage homes, with decorative stone paths, scaped lots the size of a football field, nestled in the enormous conifers. You can. But you know they’re dangerous. Those people you knew. You know what their capable of. You know that if you ever cross paths with them, decorative stone or not, they will immediately recognize all you have to lose, and pounce on it. They will threaten you and your family, nestled in among the conifers. They’ll seize on how much you have to lose. They’ll threaten to hurt your wife and kids. You know they will. They’ll abuse your fear and never stop. Which is why you can never go back. You can never see them as human, never respect them as more than animals. On sight you should kill them. On sight. Six hundred miles separates you from them. Six hundred miles and thirty years. But they’ll recognize you. Feel you, and all that money. But you too, you feel you, poor, out of place, among the conifers.