The Siren

Alone finally. The only sounds that grace my ears are the gentle winds of the west blowing down the hills, and through the large pines that guard the cabin from the evening sun. The commercial world is non-existent out here. No TV, no billboards, no skyscrapers, no cars; only one small power line for electricity, and my dependable pickup to get me to the nearest hamlet for supplies. I don't live up here all the time, but when work, and life overwhelm me, I come to this small piece of Eden. Here I have my "old" library, hundreds of first and second editions spanning several hundred years. A living room surrounded by windows, open to the glory of the surrounding mountains; a haven. Someday, I'll retire here, but not yet.

I'm a consultant for large corporations, dealing with mass production of chemicals, a job that takes me lots of places; but still give me a great deal of free time and leaves me with an excess of money. When I speak about retiring, I'll be ready at 35.

Much of the time that I spend at the cabin is taken up by wandering about, exploring the wilderness that stretches for miles in every direction. The nearest house is several miles away, and I've never met them. In searching the mountains, I found a small river flowing from down of the higher peaks, into the valley on the west side of the land that I owned. I went as high as I could to see the beginning of the stream, but I couldn't get to it without some extra gear. I didn't want to get lost up there, without a chance of anyone finding me. I managed to get high enough to see that the river took a very strange course down the mountain. At the beginning of the lower hills, it went drastically to the east, and into a little valley, before it went back to the west.

I've always been fascinated by rivers, almost eternal, always renewed, with a sweet song that never expired. Wherever I have lived in my life, it has been near a river. I'll sit for hours, meditating to the rushing sounds. This river was different; the sound was fuller, more robust, like a natural orchestra. I spent many days walking along the edge, almost in a trance, listening, and waiting.

One day after wandering for several hours, I happened upon a small cabin. I had gotten to the eastern most bend in the river, for what I had seen from above. There was a small dirt road leading from the house that probably led to the main road several miles away. The first time I saw the house, I was on a small hill just above the rivers edge. I was looking down on the house, trying to discern if anyone was living there, but there was no smoke from the chimney, no music, and no vehicle in the driveway. I thought for a moment about walking up to the house and knocking on the door, but if that person was like me, they came up here to be away from civilization, and I didn't want to disturb whomever was living there. I made my way back to my cabin, wondering about my new neighbor, but in the end, I forgot about it, with returning to the grind in a few days. I didn't make it back to the cabin until six months later, when fall was beginning and the trees had set the hills afire with color.

As soon as I got to the cabin, I began my walks along the river again. It wasn't a week before I found the house again. I hadn't even crossed my mind to look for the house, but I stumbled upon it in the same way it did the first time. I had been mulling over some philosophy I had just read, when I saw the smoke coming out of the chimney. There was something strange in the air, and it took me a moment to realize that it was a female voice. As I moved closer it became clearer, to clear to be a radio or television. It was obvious at this point that the tenant of the cabin was a woman, who happened to have a wonderful, strong, yet soothing voice. The song she sang was not familiar to me, in fact it was in a language that I didn't recognize. The melody however had frozen me in place, my hand resting against a birch tree, my feet half-buried in sticks and dead leaves. I closed my eyes and for several moments I didn't move, saturating myself with that voice, letting it pour over my like water. It was silence that startled me from my trance, rather than some other loud noise. The song was finished and an old pickup truck was kicking up dirt, moving away from the cabin down the driveway.

The silence was short lived, because the melody came back to me, amplified by my memory and imagination, in a siren's song, beckoning me to the house. I vaguely was aware of the leaves falling around, and of the sun beginning to fall towards the horizon. Eventually my senses returned, and I quickly moved back towards my own cabin, hoping to avoid trying to find my way through the darkness. I though that if she had seen me, starting towards her cabin, she would have assumed that I was some strange mountain man, or worse. I also figured that she was out here for the same reason that I was, solitude. As much as I wanted to meet the woman and hear more of her voice, I didn't want to disturb the peace I'm sure she found out here.

Despite all those things, I began to steer my daily walks towards that mysterious cabin, trying to catch even a moment of her singing. I was careful about not getting within eyesight of the cabin; instead, I would sit myself just beyond the ridge of the hill behind the cabin, and wait. It became a meditation spot, when silence reigned there. There must have been magic there, because when the wind blew, the trees seemed to have a song of their own. I would sit for hours, during the peak of the day, waiting, listening, drinking in life.

It wasn't long before snow displaced the dead leaves on the ground, and the song of the trees changed to a gentle, more haunting melody. I still went out to that spot as much as I could, except on days when the snow came down heavily. Those days I just sat in my favorite chair, with a book, or my pen and pad, occasionally looking out the window towards the hill, watching my footsteps slowly disappear into the new snow. It was also on those days, when I couldn't get close to the cabin that I began to feel lonely. As much peace as this place brought, it also isolated me from the world. I only saw others when I went in to get supplies and that was very infrequent.

I began to understand that when I went out to listen, I wasn't just hoping for a song, I was hoping that one time, she might be outside, gathering firewood, and would greet me, introduce herself, say her name with that sweet voice. More often I would risk standing at the top of the hill, staring at the house, my ear turn toward the source of the song, always different, in melody in language, in emotion. During the short days of the winter, slower, more melancholy songs seemed to predominate. The quieting blanket of snow made her songs even more haunting than they might have been, as all other sounds seemed to be drowned out.

As the loneliness and the quiet solitude of winter began to wear on me, I looked for signs of another person at her cabin; a lover, husband, or child. There was never any sign of that, no other voice offering harmony, or even just a simple presence. The impulse was so great one day that I even walked very near to the cabin, within several feet, in order to get more concrete evidence of her solitude. Just as I had approached a window, the sound of a rumbling engine filled the air. Knowing it was her truck, I made my way straight up the hill, trying to stay out of sight of the truck and it's driver. As I fell back over to the other side of the hill, I hoped that she wouldn't find my footsteps in the snow. The snow had drifted at the sides of the cabin, and it would be some time before they would be filled or blown away.

I had made a mistake; I had invaded her space, and left evidence of it. I wasn't just a ghost anymore, staying just beyond her vision. I felt the need at that point to make myself known, once and for all. I was still fearful of a face-to-face encounter, not knowing what I would do if I felt the voice on my face, the warmth, the sweetness of it. One day, when the snow was heavy enough to prevent me from seeing the trees surrounding my cabin, I sat down at my desk, with a steaming cup of coffee, and wrote. I had intended at first to write a short introduction of myself, to leave at her doorstep, just to say hello, and apologize for my intrusion. As the coffee disappeared, and the pen movements increased, the parts of myself that had surfaced during these last few months of vocal voyeurism found themselves on the paper. After a few hours, the introduction had become a story, pages long, and too much to give for the first introduction.

After I had stepped away for food, I came back to the desk, with a single sheet of paper, and wrote the following:

"To the siren in the wilderness,

With your song, you have drawn me to a place where I have found new parts of myself, so positive, some negative. Without seeing your face, you have taught me to meditate, to look inside and strip away the useless layers around my self. I hope that someday I might hear wisdom and song from your voice, and see into your eyes at the same time.

Sincerely,

Jared

The man over the hills"

I took that single sheet of paper, folded it, placed it along with the story that I had written that day, in an envelope, and sealed it. It sat on my desk through the night, while I laid in bed, awake, my heart beating mercilessly. Sometime during the night, the snow abated, and the clouds parted to let the quarter moon show through. It seemed to be a sign to me, that perhaps the end to the mystery might be at hand, that I might be finding myself at the end my loneliness.

The next day was crystal clear, the sun reflecting off the snow so strongly that I needed sunglasses when I went outside. The snow was deep, but not deep enough to prevent me from completing my errand. The envelope was tucked inside my heavy jacket, protected from the wet snow. It wasn't long before I found myself, staring down at the cabin. There was no smoke from the chimney, so I assumed she was away. Closer inspection of the area around the cabin showed no footprints around the woodpile, and no tire tracks leading away from the front of the cabin. She must have gone back into civilization before the storm hit.

I looked for some safe place to put the letter, so it wouldn't be blow away, or disappear in to the snow. I went around to the front of the house, to the front door, and I was surprised to see an old copper mail box, hanging loosely to the outside of the cabin just to the left of the door. There was never mail service out this far, it wouldn't make sense. I had a post office box in the nearest town. I wiped of the snow from the top, and opened the door. It creaked, and it rattled, but inside it was dry, and I nervously placed the letter inside, hoping that she might check it when she returned. It was a risk, but the out of place mailbox was the best place to put it. For a few moments I stood there, staring at the mailbox, wondering if I should just take back the letter and never come that way again.

After much debate, I slowly went around the house and made my way back up the hill. I turned back once to look at the snow-covered cabin, then I trudged back to my place. I sat for hours at my desk that day, staring at a blank sheet of paper, hoping that something might uncovered itself from in my mind, and find itself on the paper, but it was useless. I was thinking about the letter, wondering if she would ever find it, read it, what she would think. Over the next few weeks, I would occasionally walk over, hoping that there was some sign of her, but there were no tracks, the chimney was smokeless.

Eventually I stopped going, and my hope for a response diminished as the snow melted. Perhaps I was foolish to think that she would think of me as anything other than just another person in the wilderness. And the story that I wrote, bear my soul on paper, it must have scared her off. A lonely man in the mountain looking for comfort from a woman he hadn't even met. Eventually I convinced myself that she had read the letter and just thrown it in the fireplace. The possibility that she had left permanently never entered my mind. I was rejected. I tried to put her out of my mind, and after some weeks, and much writing, I succeeded. I found new direction to walk in, ponds, creeks, gorges, perfect outlooks for watching the sunset. I wrote many new stories during the first weeks of spring, enough that I was considering trying to publish. I had some friends that had managed to get novels to print, and I hoped that could help me through the process. The last day in April I decided that my extended vacation was getting too long and that I needed to return to civilization.

Once the grass had shown through, I flooded my cabin with music, all kinds, classical to reggae, hip-hop to Celtic. There was an unconscious need to fill the silence, and there were very few moments where I didn't have something playing. Despite hundreds of CD's, thousands of songs, I never found one that was truly soothing. Each had something to offer, but it was never enough. There were moments when I tried to bring back the siren's melody, but I found that I couldn't bring it back; the substance of it had disappeared. The last day of April, as I began my checklist for moving back to civilization, I put Edvard Grieg in my stereo, and turned the volume up. I went out to my truck to give it a quick maintenance check, and when I returned to the house, I found an envelope on the doorstep. I was surprised to see it, and for a moment, I couldn't think of where it may have come from. The envelope was a letter size manila, with no writing on the outside. I took it with me inside, and as I sat down at my desk, I realized that it was from the siren. With shaking hands I broke the seal, and were pages and pages, a story that she had apparently written, and a small note. The note read:

"Dear Jared,

It has been quite awhile since I've seen your footsteps around my place. I had wondered where my audience had gone. You might be surprised to know that I was aware of your presence. One day, I say you leaning against the tree, eyes closed. I wondered for many days why you didn't come closer, even introduce yourself, but eventually I knew that you were savoring the songs that I was singing. I also know that a person would only come out here for quiet solitude, and that you might now want to intrude on mine.

When I received your letter, I wasn't sure how to respond at first, except to answer with a story about you, the man who came only to listen, from my perspective. I spent the winter months writing, hoping to match the depth that you have a gift for. I don't have the gift for language that you have, but perhaps that melodies that I sing will somehow find their way onto the pages that I've included with this note.

After you've read it, I hope that you will find the courage to come listen again, and perhaps, after I've sung my last note, you might knock on my door. I'll wait until that day.

Sincerely,

Anna, the Siren"

My heart was pounding mercilessly again, as it had during that sleepless night. I couldn't believe it. I ran to the window, foolishly thinking she might still be around. When I was sure she was gone, I took the story to my chair and devoured it, learning that she enjoyed having an audience, that after she had gone away she missed my presence and had fallen into loneliness, without song. As I read the words seemed to gather a melody that I had heard her sing in the beginning of the winter, haunting, melancholy, needing. I read the story again, a third time, trying to learn all the intonations, all the nuances. She reflected many of the ideas that were in the story that I had given her, but with a sweet and wise flavor that I loved.

Despite the setting sun, I walked quickly, half aware of the direction I was taking, but just as the sun hit the trees, I was there, leaning against the tree, waiting. There was no smoke in the chimney, to tracks in snow this time to give any sign of a presence there, but I waited.

Sweet notes began from nothing, so soft at first that I thought it my imagination. As the voice became stronger, in major tones, a smile came to my face, something absent for many weeks. There was no resisting the draw this time. I walked slowly towards the cabin, and I noticed that the windows were wide open. A form appeared at the side window, hidden at first by the curtains, but her head soon appeared. She was still singing, her lips moving slowly, as the words drifted into the air. I walked towards her at the window, hoping that she would invite me in, but she only smiled and moved away, back inside. I stood for a moment, confused and disappointed, but I resolved not to let this chance get away. I made my way around to the front of the cabin and approached the door. The song she was singing came to an end, and I remembered what she had said in the note. I knocked twice on the door, and it opened immediately; she had been waiting for me.

The source of the song was finally in front of me, no barriers, no hesitation, up close. The words I wanted to say, I couldn't find. She smiled in understanding and took my hand.

"I'm glad you came Jared, it's good to finally meet my audience. You don't have to sit atop the hill anymore."