"Only then were the rest of us allowed to search deep into the woods without using butcher knives to cut through the thick brush and twigs, as the drill sergeants had proposed, and without a Thermos of water or fruit to keep us hydrated, as the cooks had suggested, because all we really needed was one another."
"We weren't afraid of finding snakes or even murderers, not after all the physical labor and punishments we had endured over the past year, and going into the trees was like entering the thin, cool atmosphere of a land we had heard only from fairy tales read aloud to us, because the air was calm with a brooding tranquility, and the susurration and sighing of the trees gave us an immediate sense of repose,"
"All across the narrow paths that curved around trees, where the worms and insects crawled in the dirt that held the tracks of deer and snakes, we heard the sound of footsteps from the little people we assumed were spirits running away from us, those little tricksters, and though we never caught a glimpse of them, we did manage to descry a deranged vulture ahead of us pecking at the ground, eating the last gobbet of a dead carcass."
In spring 1988 a group of youths escaped a courtyard by chewing through a rotted fence and crawling underneath it. At sunrise the guards discovered that Matthew had disappeared. The rest of the group were then allowed to search deep into the woods while staff and drill sergeants searched the open areas and said they would call the police. The youths were not afraid after enduring a year of labor and punishments. Entering the trees felt like a fairy-tale land with calm air, brooding tranquility, whispering trees, silence, and uncanny footsteps and a vulture sighting. Nora, Matthew's sister, worried.
Read at Big Think
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