Regarding New Jericho

Where God's redeemed their vigils keep.

The setting for this little story is the second growth forest of semi-rural western Washington. The characters are some raffish children growing up in a symbiotic relationship with the forest. The children were in the forest, but more importantly, the forest was in the children. They were truly grubby forest creatures. This creature, myself, will never lose the sense of forest existence. It is more real to my memory than the house we lived in or our own yard at home.

These kids were my sibs and myself and maybe a few of the other kids tagging along. We had been told to stay away from this place, and several other places moldering away forgotten in the forest. I remember other derelict or abandoned buildings in the forest also. They were always merely sided with peeling tar paper. Tar paper shacks for real. There is a particular scent memory to these kinds of places up here in mushroom country. A fungal scent, mixed with dust and the decay of rotting household items left behind when the people died or just left. We never knew anything about the previous inhabitants. Kids hear stuff when adults talk, but never get the whole story. And kids get stories wrong too. 

The Grubbies

There was at least one abandoned well out there too, we heard, but we never found it. Probably just as well.

This memory involves some sort of extremely outré religious community that had vanished as a living entity before our time there. It had been inhabited by men only we heard.

Deep in the forest, it seemed miles away to us, though it was probably only a few blocks away. Surrounded by a thick growth of tree trunks and brush was this shabby building. We thought it was creepy and actively frightening. This did not stop us from exploring.

This old building was easy to get into. Doors were not locked. It was all rough lumber with no finishing whatsoever. You could see daylight between the wall boards. Boards they were too, maybe 1x8s in a vertical position. The very high ceiling had holes in it too.

In the main hall were several rough homemade desks and stools built very tall for some reason. Seemed like it would have been hard to get up on those stools. I might also remember some dusty books, perhaps some Bibles and other papers. I don’t remember searching for the living quarters.

We understood that they were like monks perhaps. Men living without women in the forest in their strange wooden building. Maybe they were trying to concentrate on God alone out there.

One of the things we probably got wrong was the name of the place. We thought it was New Jericho, but I bet you anything that it was really called New Jerusalem by its odd inhabitants. That is a realization that just occurred to me yesterday after all these years.

I wonder what happened to them. Did they just die off, or did they leave to ponder God somewhere else?