The Forest
“Where am I?”
The forest looked strange around him, tall pine canopies which nearly blocked out the sun. The wind whistles between their bows. How nice it sounded, or did it? He tried to remember but found he could not.
Where am I?
He sat down. He did not want to move. Stay where you are. Someone had told him that, once, so very long ago. We’ll find you. But how could they find him when he was all alone in the world. What a stupid thing to tell him. Who was it who had said it? Perhaps it didn’t really matter.
No one would find him here.
But still he didn’t want to move. The strange place scared him, and he was too tired to move. It was a strange tiredness. It slept on and on, deep within his bones, turning them to leaden weights which he struggled to drag around. had it always been like this? Something told him it hadn’t, but how could he know, he remembered nothing else. He knew nothing but this strange and broken body. It was familiar at least, the feeling of his skin rubbing up against itself in loose thin folds. But something pushed at the edges of his mind, like a thing hidden just behind a hill, only he had not the energy to climb it, not with his leaden weights.
He began to cry. Why did it have to do this to him. He didn’t like it at all when his mind played tricks. Showing him the hill and telling him that there was something beyond yet never letting him see. He wished it would stop.
I hate it when you do that. Stop it.
A tear slid through the long drawn lines running down his face, and fell to the rock below, first one, then another. Again and again they fell, each splashing in the wake of the previous.
A small pool formed in the rock’s dimpled surface. A fragment reflected on its placid surface. It caught his attention. Fascinated him entirely. He stared deep into the hollowed eye which hung in the pools surface. He sat there for many hours terrified of the thought of looking away only to find the horrible reflection standing by him. It imitated him, jested at him, made a mockery of his every movement. Why would it not look away? Why must it torment him like this? He wished it would go away, or strike some blow at him, anything to break the awful stare, but it would only mock him.
A ripple went through the pool, disturbing the image, and he breathed. But what was it that had made it go away? He strained to raise his neck to see. A little thing sat on the rock in front of him. It was small, and round. Covered in plumes of yellow and white. What was it? Was it something new? No it couldn’t be knew, he had seen it before, but when?
For some odd reason the worm came to his mind, along with the sound of screeching creatures, the same as the one before him, but smaller.
He reached for it, and the creature stepped forward, wary of the strangers bony fingers. Slowly it came closer until it hopped onto his outstretched hand.
He smiled. It was a nice creature, so soft, so light. It certainly was not made of led.
It let out a sound. A funny short little sound. Had he heard it before? Yes. He was sure he had.
A thought came to him, of some other place in some other time, nearly unreachable to him.
He focused on it, reaching out to it in his mind.
There was a woman, she held his hand, the other one was outstretched. One of the creatures flew and landed on it pecking the small black seeds from his palm. A bird, yes, that was what they called it. The bird chirped. He smiled, it sounded nice.
Suddenly the bird looked up, there was no more seed left in his hands.
The chirped again, disappointed. But he had no more to give. It leaned in and pecked his finger, the memory shattered. He flinched forgetting about the thought and the little creature —what was it called? He had called it something — fluttered away.
He tried to get up to go after it, but his limbs were too heavy and he fell to the ground. “Wait, come back, I do not want to be alone again!” He tried to call. But his throat felt strange to him and no sound would come but a thin gurgling. He again “little friend, please don’t leave me!” But he could not make himself heard.
He began to cry again.
How alone he was, no one would wait for him to move his leaden limbs. They would come, but they would leave before he could say hello.
He looked at his legs, thin loose flesh draped over pale bones, they had never carried him, had they? No. He was sure they hadn’t.
He sank to the forest floor, and lay his head in the moss. There was something on his arm. A red liquid flowed from a small hole a pebble had left. How thin it was.
He watched drip onto the moss.
Perhaps he would sleep for a bit.
After all, he was so terribly tired.
Yes.
He would sleep.
