Her

She walked.

She didn’t know for how long, but she did.

She inhaled the chilled air, embraced her thick scarf with her mitten’d hands, felt the blood run through her body, and one step after the other, walked.

She didn’t care for what she was missing. Responsibilities and appointments deemed unnecessary to her now and her body felt empty, like the calm before the storm. She had no idea where she was going �" all roads were connected like a spider’s web to nowhere, and she was stuck to the never ending concrete path like a blind man walking into the unknown. She just wanted to walk. She didn’t care.

Her eyes were fixed in front of her, looking forward as she strongly moved, though her gaze was fogged with thought and perception, as her mind buzzed with word and letter. This is what she was truly seeing as she mindlessly and precariously crossed roads and dodged pedestrians, her crazed delusions and realisations.

She just couldn’t fathom it. What we were, who we were, and who SHE was.

She wrapped her mind around the uncontrollable questions forming in her brain that seemed to implode endlessly. Humans are sick, the universe not far behind. She didn’t understand how this fantastical God in the sky can let these ungodly things happen. Children dying from cancer, famine, and abandonment. People consciously taking their own lives to end the suffering in their souls, whilst the same people took for granted all the things in their privileged diseased lives that they willingly took from other suffering souls. How humans have to pay to be given knowledge, and how we are judged by the ignorant others for our bodies. How we don’t give our coppers and silvers to the homeless due to our own selfish reasons, and how we glorify donating to charity to make ourselves look like higher people. What makes everything worse is that she was one of these people, the selfish scum of the earth who take everything for granted and put their own selfish thoughts first.

And this selfish thought

Was about her.

Not herself, but the other her.

Her.

She suddenly stood to a halt, and realised she was surrounded by an abundance of wheat and soil. Walking for miles, her outraged thoughts powered her engines and drove her into the midst of nowhere, and now here she was.

Finally concentrating on her sight, she looked out at the billowing clouds which parted the perfect blue sky and tumbling hills of crops and forest. It was like she was on another planet, a complete contrast to her normal city views.

She found herself catching a shaky breath whilst she stepped back, like she was hit by the realisation. The landscape seemed so peaceful and clear, like her mind had swiftly become. This was all about her.

H E R

The word rang through her mind and seemed to fill her with amazement.

The day, as beautiful as it was, still had a bitter temperature that gnawed at her raw cheeks and nose, so she sat down cross legged where she stood hoping that the wheat shielded her slightly from the gusty winds. Pulling her scarf further up her neck that it brushed the bottom of her cheek bones, she tried to order and solve the puzzle that was forming in her head.

It was her this whole time, the one who was constantly in her head, playing with her mind and body. Before she slept she thought of her, as if a ghost had whispered into her ear so soft that it sprang the hairs on her back and the goosebumps on her skin. It was her she pictured as she lounged on the sofa, stirred her tea and washed her clothes. It was all her, the thing that went round and round in her muddied head that made her dizzy.

She missed her.

This whole complicated labyrinth in her brain and at the end it was all just her. She missed the feel of her skin, the sound of her voice, her thoughts and ideas. She just missed her.

H E R

It’s strange how a word so simple, a three letter word, can cause so much excruciating and exhausting pain that it makes you want to scream until your throat bleeds and your lungs empty into the decaying atmosphere. It makes you want to run as fast, as hard, as quick as you can until your legs snap under you and collapse into the hard floor. It makes you want her back. The longing is unbearable, the yearning is agonizing, but it’s there. From that one, simple, short, one syllable word. It’s there.

She was crying and she didn’t even notice.

 

Author's Note

This is not based on anything personal, just a short story I wrote not long ago. Any reviews would be more than welcomed, and advice would be super cool.

Reviews

[Alfred Kukitz]

Conflicts within consciousness are common tales. I like your descriptive nature of her, the surroundings; moreover, you maintain a steady idea of who "her"(sic) is as the divided self.

regards,
al