one

not finished! I just want to know if the mood and everything is, you know, on the right track...........

Chapter One: Awake

It feels like I am taking the first breath I have ever taken in my life. I gulp the air in like it was morphine. This could only be compared to a drug high. It washes away all traces of this moist salt that seems to have adhered to my mouth encompassing my throat and nose along with it. Air never tasted this good. I can’t remember anything better in this moment than this air. And I can feel the grass under my fingers like it is the first thing I ever touched. I tug at it in youforia. I feel limitless. I breath in hard through my nose and again I am reminded of narcotics because this scent is unreal. I’m drunk with it. It’s dusk and I can almost feel real, literal waves of calm. I am a depressed suicidal maniac who just felt utter happiness for the first time. I can hear water and noises of the woods and it makes me so happy I want to cry. I let the forest encompases me and I become a part of it.

The forest that surrounds me is perfect. Evergreens that are huge and giant. Mountains and green everywhere. The grown is dark and everything has a dark feeling to it, but the atmosphere has a glow. The sky is diamonds. My vision can see every detail and my nose smells every scent. Its overpowering. It lulls me. Every pine is detailed and I can count every crease in the bark of the trees. Every color is intensified from reality. And we are together as one and I can’t think of anything better. Nothing could be better. This is sweeter than pure cane sugar and more consuming than any orgasim any nymphomanic has ever felt. Take the best feeling you ever felt then multiply it and send it through your veins everywhere. Let it course through your system and maybe you could feel what I am experiencing. I remember nothing from before this moment and right now I can’t make myself care about that. This world is so full and my mind is so very empty.

Sleep. I have just awoken from a deep sleep, I can feel it rolling off me. The moment you awake on a saturday and curl closer into a ball and let the sun consume you. So peaceful is this feeling, I can’t get over how lovely this moment is. I want to stay here like this all day and night because right now I can’t imagine anything tugging me away. What could take me away from my happy place? That is what this is. It is my happy place. I don’t know where I am or who I am and it doesn't matter here. I just know that it is safe here. It is irrational. Even though I don’t know where here is I can’t bring myself to feel afraid. Consciously, I know it’s wrong to not be terrified but it doesn't matter. This is my bed, my home, and my everything. Soon enough stars erupt and each one is bright and clear.

I imagine that no one has ever felt so safe. Not a child with their mother, nor a wife to their significant other. Humans just don’t have this strong of an emotion. I can only compare this to the “place” that people picture as their “happy place”. But most people picture real, tangible, and practical places. This is a place I couldn’t have ever imagined because it doesn't exist. Earth can’t possibly have created this. It’s childlike and vivid. It smells fresh and unworldly. Could this really be life. I don’t care. I don’t care if I ever wake up.

Rain starts to fall and I realize this really can’t be real because the rain is shear and refreshing like a mist. It is the rain of a hot summer's day. It is silent like tears and by the time it gets to the ground it is already disappeared into a mist. Eventually I have to get up and feel this on my face and hands. I feel like a small child reaching out for candy. When I stand I find that I don’t have shoes. The grass prickles my feet but when I look it is actually moss. My resting place was a bed of moss. I feel myself being pulled along by the forest. Air guiding me to my destination. Again no fear, there is only fascination.

I know that I have reached my destination because the wind stops. Everything stops. The air seems to have disappeared and all noses cease to exist. A bell is ringing signalling my arrival and then I see it. A river, if you could call it that. It seems to be almost a creek but too rough and wild. It’s almost angry. It doesn't belong here in this world. This world is too peaceful. It shouldn’t be so angry. I go to get a better look and I find bath water. The river runs warm and silky. Clear all except for a pink tint, almost salmon colored. It feels familiar but I don’t know why. I have no ties to this particular river or any body of water really.

I don’t remember anything at all. I can’t remember people or things. Everything that makes up a human, I seem to be missing. No memories are here in my mind. I feel panic and my heart starts to race. Danger. Now I feel it, this is why I should be terrified. I don’t exist, I don’t know anyone, and no one knows me. Why should I be in this situation? Who put me here? Why did I end up here? Why can’t I feel any memories or emotions through my veins? I am empty and lost. This beautiful forest is everything but also everywhere. I know that it won’t hurt me but how do I know if I will survive the night, the next day, or the next? What is keeping me from the real world? Shouldn’t I be with people, a population? I feel a life come back to me. One without places, people, or feelings but one with knowledge and theories. I know what the world is. I know what humans are and animals and trees. I know things like any other human should. I also am very aware of how fragile I am. Just how week and lost I am. Aren’t humans supposed to live in civilization? There is a reason humans colonize. I can feel panic but my heart must have given up because I can't hear it nor feel it under my hands. I can’t see any indication of a pulsating life under my hands. I feel cold and empty just like my mind. Only a second ago everything seemed to make sense and now I feel the rush of just how dangerous this is. I sense some sort of sick joke like someone should pop out and yell “boo”. But no one is coming. This world seems void of humans. Like my own personal heaven or hell. I am falling down the rabbit hole. I can’t look around fast enough even though my eyes see everything in clear vision.

Humans? I almost forgot about them. Who is them? Do I even have a them? Do I belong to anyone? Should I feel sad that I can’t remember anyone, don’t feel any love to anyone? I can’t seem to conjure up any faces or past experiences. The horror of losing a loved one is enough to make me sink to my feet. Could anyone imagine losing all their loved ones all at once? No, most people never have to feel the emptiness of everyone they love taken from them in a instant. If they did they wouldn’t be able to live. But this is much different because I can’t know how they are without me. I can’t see their faces or ever hear from them again. I can’t run over the memories I have with them through my head. I feel like a mother who had a child abducted and never got to say goodbye. Never got to say “I love you” enough times. I was cheated something. I had my whole family and life abducted from me. Some force has taken my life away from me. A life I may never know. Why should anyone have that taken away. Was it that horrible that I blocked out any recognition of my past. What horrors must I have gone through? Is that better than just leaving my life without a trace? It it better for me or them? If I was a person what does this mean to the people who knew me? Humans have people, friends, creators? How are they right now? Even though I can’t remember I know that if I did leave I would have had to have left something for them to understand. Wouldn’t I? I can’t do anything about this now so I just have to know that if I did have someone important that I would have had told or explained this to them if they really were important enough. I will have to trust myself. A past me that I can’t remember. Perhaps if I did leave without a trace then there was no one worth telling? I could live with that. I can move on if all my memories and emotions were taken from me and left with nothing because I can and will trust myself enough to know that I would have done the right thing. I am a good enough person for that I hope. No, I can’t hope I have to know because if I just have hope then I can’t live with myself. From now on I will believe in myself and I have to move forward. And with that I try to shove all of those thoughts in a file cabinet in my mind. It's a library and this is the first book added to its shelves. Sad but at least their is something. I am slowly accumulating me again I think. Making decisions and thoughts, adding them to my internal library. That is comforting. If I do disappear in these woods I will disappear being me. Knowing who me is seems comforting.

It's getting dark and I need someone. I need to find anything else, whether it be a human or an animal. I need something to comfort me and to change this hell back to the beautiful sanctuary that it was before. Wait, what if someone is around here? Humans can be cruel, they can hurt me and kill me. Alone in this woods anyone could be waiting in the shadows.. This thought takes over and my parasympathetic nervous systems takes control. Any human, any murderer could come to take me. I am in the wilderness and therefore could be apart of the wild. I am now a prey. Something or someone's dinner could be me.

The river I am by is surrounded by is in an opening and I feel very exposed all of a sudden. The clearing is just too huge for my liking. I realize that I am an open target. What do I do about it? Get back in the woods I am telling myself. Get into the woods where no one can find you. If I find anyone I will be the predator. I will decide whether I want to interact with them. I will stock them before they do so to me. That is what I do. I run as fast as my legs will go and I find that they are muscular. I am a feline through my jungle. Suddenly the ground is just too slow. Before I think about it I am in the trees. My nails claw through them like silk. They push me off and hurl me forward. I am not running I am flying and I feel the air pushing me forward. This is the stage and I am the actor. Nothing can defeat me. I am responsible for my life, no one else is, and I now know why I was so comfortable in the moss bed. Because this task of keeping myself alive is way too easy. I am the most vicious thing in these woods. Nothing could stop me, in fact I want them to try. I pitty the fool who would want to go against me. As if hearing me I see a bear in my peripheral vision. It looks so soft and huge. Its teeth are insignificant against the feeling of blood lust I feel now though. He stands no chance. If this is the game I will be the victor.

The bear sees me and seems to think the same thing about our meeting. He growls and assumes that he will walk away with me being his free meal. A snarl erupted from my mouth. I feel a smile playing on my lips. He goes towards me. Too slow. I move faster. I grab it by the fur on the back of it’s neck as if to embrace the creature and tug slightly. This is enough to cause a crack and a yell but all too soon it turns into a gurgle. The sound blends into the river in the background and with that the game is over. I win and the bear is the prize. It falls to my feet. From now on I am a creature of instinct, and it feels good. This is my beautiful playing field. This world is as beautiful as it was in the morning when I awoke from my slumber, but know it is all that much better. It is my stage, my game, I never felt so alive and It makes me laugh. My voice rings through the air. This world is not only my sanctuary but it seems like my home. I own it. I was always meant to be here, be the ruler of this world. This is why people get power hungry I remind myself. Oh but I love it. I don’t care. This is my world and I am in charge. I always wanted to be in charge and now I am. No place could be more perfectly made for me. I am never going to tire of this. This is mine. It was made for me and me alone. Nowhere else could offer me anything better than this. I grab my meal and run. No heavier than a backpack. This makes me laugh. I need a campsite. No, I am staying here, I need a home. I will forage one if I have to. Nothing will stop me. I push off the ground and sprint this time. The air moves through me and I know my destination in my mind. I will keep looking until I find exactly what I am looking for because I can’t feel any loss of stamina and no immediate hunger pains. I could search forever for the perfect place within my perfect setting. I am free. This is my game and I am all too ready to play.

So was I an animal now? More than humans are generally? Perhaps, I could live with that. If I'm happy why should it matter. I am just going to enjoy the run. Feel the earth beneath me. Hold my breath and breath in. My mind clears for the first time through this journey. I just feel the air as it wisps through my face, the hardening fur over my body. I feel the moss turn to trees under my feet and enjoy the cool air pass under them when I jump. Calm and collect. The air turns to smoke and I feel the warmth wash over me. Warm and whole is my body. I must be near civilization though I only see a small light ahead that is dim but radiant. I suppose that there must be someone close ahead. I race faster knowing that I am in control, after this grizzly I can't imagine anything else considered a threat to me. Still, I stay in the shadows. The more time passes the closer I get but I still can't hear anything but the occasional crack and wisp of the evergreens. And then the trees stop and I arrive at another clearing, much different than the one with the river through. This one is more natural and smaller, quaint. There is no one here and I don't sense anyone watching me. I take a cautious step forward and debate not circling the area first before entering. I don't hear anyone but the last thing I want is a shot from afar. I keep going, I'm already to far in to retreat. The bear slumps off my back and thuds to the ground before the fire. It's warm and seems perfect for just one person. That is comforting to know, if it was more like a bonfire I sure wouldn't stick around to find all who is there.  This one seams abandoned so I sit next to it knowing that this is not mine so if I hear just a inconsequential crack from any direction then I will be gone.

    The longer I stay the more comfortable I feel. I have not a sound in over an hour I think. My mind has been quiet while I hold my breath for anyone coming to reclaim what is theirs. At this point it would be a wast of wood to not use the fire. I find more branches and put together a makeshift "cooker" for my meat. Cooker is probably not the right term for my silly little sticks here but it functions as such. Once the meat is encompassed by the heat I relax into the ground, falling back and letting my hair fly around me. The sky is too beautiful to be real. It has colors that the normal human eye's shouldn't be able to see. I can spot the stars and their colors. The cooler ones that blaze red and the  hottest ones that are almost white. I can see the colors that paint the sky, the pinks and the blues, all the rainbow but green. Funny though, here in these woods I can't seem to find any north star. There is nothing here to tell me where to go. Nothing to allow me to find a once called home. I will need to find a way out of here one day I suppose, perhaps I will need to search far and wide for the star to lead me home, any indication of direction, or time would be nice. I like time, I think I remember looking at the time, or perhaps I was annoyed with it. If home was anywhere like here I would be that I didn't want my time to run out. Time, I like to know the time. I can add that to my list of characteristics, put it in my personal library. What else am I? I know that right now I am me but what really is me? Without my memories and thoughts am I really me, or any different from the me I was before? How many different versions of me are there in existence. Every person I knew knows a part of me in their mind. Knows one version or perception of "me". How many are there and just how different are they? If someone knows you before you change is that old you still you or do you evolve into something altogether new? I would like to believe that each person is them all the time. They are true to themselves, sure they can change but is really that different? When people have amnesia they wake up and go back with their families and friends, they talk through pictures and old memories. They get put back together again, but in my case without the memories and photos will I be put back together again? I want to believe I will but I can't be sure because I may never get the prof I want. But right now, where it matters, I am this me and that is all. I am not the past me or the new me, I just am. I can breath and think and put myself into a person, me. I have the same cerebral cortex and so most of me wants to believe that that doesn't change.

    So what makes a person? Is it that small part of our brain that holds us or the actions that we make? Is it really the memories that other people have of us, if so do we only die when people forget us? I believe that we are hidden in that outer part of the brain, the one with the memories and feelings. The one that makes consume decision. If that is our conscious decision making system then isn't it our consciousness and there for us? We are our consciousness, even me out here in the middle of now where am me. My consciousness it filling and feeling. I am becoming more than I was a minute again but still the same. I would have made the same conclusion a hour ago so really I am the same person. I think I can really believe now that I am in fact the same person I was before even if I never get proof that is the case. I think my consciousness it what it is. Mine a complex, and twisted mind that like to analyze things and figure out the world because if you don't figure it out then you may never get to find the point. You can't accomplish anything before you know the directions. I am just putting together the puzzle pieces in this game to find the whole picture. I think I know that most people don't try to accomplish this. They fear this thinking, which is silly. They think it is an existential crisis. "Crisis", ay right. If it is then I relish in it, bask in it and soak as much up as possible of it. I want to think to feel to be happy. I want to understand everything and take it all in. I want to know what it is all about and with that question I know who me is. This is my personality. This is it now and forever because I don't think I will ever not want to know. I want to feel and do life. I want to live in it and know it. I want to understand this and feel it with every part of my consciousness. By knowing life you experience it and that is the point isn't it? If we are put in this life for a reason is it not to use it? Contemplation, thought, emotions is what matters, because it is the only thing that is real, our heads. Everything we think feel and say is us, is the game, is the purpose. Every note in a song, thought in a head, line on a photo, every word out of our mouths is real. What we do is real. In our lives only we are real. Emotions are everything, they encompass us because they are us.  We can only feel, know, and control us. Everything else is objects, things to interact with. Sure they can be important but nothing quite as real as ourselves. I know that I must have been quite selfish in my past because I understand this. Most people have problems with others calling humans and animals objects. But why is that so wrong? I am not saying they are not important or special just not a real part of us. We are selfish,why? Because we are the only thing that matters. Everything we do is to ourselves. No one is “better” but everyone is “better” because you are the focal point of you. I let my mind process this, and feel the peace that comes from this world around me. I let the stars drift me away while I wait for the meet to be done. Normally I would never eat another creature but then again I am a creature now to in this world. So I must survive like one. In civilization there really is no excuse to eat meat. Horrible decision I think but out here I am an animal and there for become part of the food chain. And lucky for me in this food chain I am the predator. And with the meat "cooked" and ate I sleep with one eye open ready for anything the night might bring. I hum to myself a familiar tune and allow myself to go into a slumber of safety in this new world I was graciously given. I let myself sink back into the moss and drift.

Author's Note

not finished! I just want to know if the mood and everything is, you know, on the right track...........

Reviews

[Beautiful Intentions]

What I had enjoyed most about this piece is the complexities of open-speaking. The array of broad questions seemingly insightful to the characteristics of the individual. Correct in your inbox message when you had mentioned needing an open mind, open thinking in order to truly embrace this story for what it is. The imagery in places was simply riveting, seeing this imagined world for all its beautiful glory, from the moment this person had awoke breathing the new air of the woods to close to the end when hunting the bear. Just superb. But as I had said, what captivated me was this almost ongoing eternal battle of fear and delight, of predator and prey, of loneliness and confusion to this empowered creature digging their claws in deep. A scrimmage of constant tug of war. This felt entirely massive in perspective, and yet, overly quite quickly considering the content... Loving your enthusiasm for knowledge as it is something that I also share. That desire to understand how everything works which make me a humongous tinkerer in all aspects of my life. Relating to this joy, this excitement the character had felt towards the end of this story, feeling exhilarated by their outlook and great strides forward into the unknown on a mission to make it known. Wonderfully done, Anonymous!

Can I make one tiny suggestion or more like ask for a favor though?:) The choice of blue lettering was difficult for me to read because I suck... Have very pale eyes, low pigmentation, then add in the bright fluorescents of the overhead/back lights at work adding a glare to the screen and I could barely read this. Stupid me left my tinted reading glasses at home. You can completely ignore me though.:) No biggie. I will just know I'll need my glasses with the next chapter and be prepared. Aha...