Summer has Ended

The flies crowded in clouds along the dry creek bed. It was their time of season when summer ended, and the winter chill began. These flies struggle for the last gasp of summer life before the land begins to wilt. Luckily for them, the summer heat dragged on longer than most years. Isabella took notice of the Indian summer as she paced around an old oak tree. She noticed the branches hung low with acorns due to a stormy winter earlier in the year. Unfortunately, much of the evidence of the soaking rains had vanished. She noted in her journal that the ground had begun to turn white, and the trees had lost their green from the dust that now covered them.

Isabella wasn’t like the other girls that she went to school with. She enjoyed the femininity most young girls assume but always gravitated towards the mountains. Her favorite outfit she wore on all her hikes was a white T-shirt tucked into a blue skirt that ended a little more than halfway down her legs. Her best hiking shoes were white Converse with white ankle socks. Her only possessions were in her light blue denim Jansport backpack. Inside, she had a Pentax film camera her grandfather gave her, a bit archaic for its time, but did the trick. Digging further into the bag was her journal, which recorded each day’s weather conditions for the last three years. Finally, at the bottom of her bag was a green apple and a bottle of water.

         Isabella lived on a High Mountain road, which was too isolated to be given township recognition. Located east of the town of San Luis Obispo, High Mountain was just that, tucked away in the high mountains of the Los Padres mountains. These mountains are sharp and jut out unexpectedly in every direction. They aren’t the tallest of mountains, but they are the wildest ones in California. Isabella’s father’s family had settled into this mountain valley in 1893. Land was cheap then and the California soil was rich for growing. The farm is now a vineyard that stretches for two hundred acres. The Wine smells and tastes bitter to Isabella. She would much rather explore the mountains around her. Her mother and father did not slow her from seeking these adventures.

         Isabella grew to know every game trail around the vineyard and even got to name them. She knew every spring that then turned into a creak, which eventually flowed into the Lake over the ridge. In the summer, she would watch the small Arroyo Chub fish swim in the small pools of the dried creek beds, and in the winter, she watched the deer drinking from the clear rushing water. Isabella was satisfied with this life. She had no desire to see other places. There were nearly infinite valleys and creak beds to explore in her mountains.

         However, this summer filled her with a sense of sadness. The season dragged on too long for her liking. She feared the rain would not come until Christmas. The evidence was everywhere around her. The trunks of the oak trees were a pale grey. The grass, which grew to her shoulders in the recent spring, began to thin out. The soil, which was usually thick and brown, was now cracked with each step, leaving a white cloud of dust behind her. Life had seemed to leave her mountains. Death had touched the land with his destructive finger. Isabella tried to enjoy her hike but couldn’t help but notice the land’s conditions. As she walked further toward the ridge, pines began to riddle the slopes. These pines were small and scarcely scattered, no larger than five feet tall. Isabella noticed a family of deer feeding in the brush near the pines. She snapped shots of the deer with her camera before they noticed her. She noticed the ribs and the hip bones of the deer. They seemed to be as ill as the mountains themselves. When Isabella became too close, the deers scattered down the hill.

         Isabella walked on, marking in her journal the condition of the land before her. The wind had begun to pick up as she reached nearer the top of the ridge. With the wind, she began to notice a change in her surroundings. The trees danced in the wind, but the ground below was silent. A coolness ran from the top of the ridge down the hill to the valley below. She walked on in the silence of the mountains until the first noise other than the branches above could be heard. Just before the ridge, Isabella spotted a spring running out from a boulder in the hillside. Next to this spring was an oak tree in tremendous health. The leaves had no coat of dust, and the bark was as brown as the soil in winter. She had found life at the top of a lifeless mountain. She took numerous photos of the tree as if it might be gone the next time she returned.

        She hurried on to the top of the ridge before the sun began to set. As she reached the top, she saw vultures playing in the thermals in the air, floating without effort. Ahead of her was the lake, which was not blue but grey. Clouds had begun to flow in from the sea. Isabella was sure she could smell the tide from there. The sun was gone within minutes, and the color left the earth. All that was left was the grey luminous light left over from the sun. Before she hurried down the hill, she looked out at the never-ending mountain range. She thought to herself how mother nature had shaken these mountains hundreds of times with great earthquakes and how it destroyed the life among it. Yet, every time she rattles the land, the life returns just as quickly as it was destroyed. Isabella felt cold drops on her face as she wondered about the life cycle of the mountains. It began to fall in repetitive drops until, finally, the ground struggled to absorb it. Isabella quickly opened her journal and wrote, “Summer has ended.”