The Girl, the Forest, and I
1.
I met a girl once. She had hair, eyes, skin; a pretty face. I can't remember much else about her physical appearance now. It was so long ago.
It had occurred on one of my trodden trails, during one of my many musings. She had startled me; not once had I ever met anyone on those trails, and not once had I met anyone since. Some would, of course, boast that I owned the woods with the trails, but I believed it was very much the other way around. In either case, we had a special kind of relationship, the woods and I, almost intimate, and no one had ever come between us.
The presence of the girl that day, needless to say, ruffled that intimacy. When I met the girl, when her presence first registered in my mind and then proceeded to freeze it, the leaves stopped rustling, the wind stopped blowing, the birds stopped singing, the squirrels stopped scurrying. At our meeting, nature fell to the backdrop as the girl absorbed my unexpected, but instantly avid attention.
She stared as I stared. The uncertainty of our spontaneous acquaintance trembled between us; while all the while, the bristling acid of jealousy started pouring through the punctures of nature's hold on me.
Nature seethed at the tear in our relationship, but I myself was barely aware. I knew that something had changed with that girl's presence: I could feel the shift in the silence. Later I would scream that I had no choice in the matter, that it wasn't my fault, that it had all been the girl. But then, at that moment, at that meeting, I could only stare as she stared.
Before the girl, how long had it been since I'd seen a human? Too long.
Before the girl, how long had it been since I'd talked to a human? I couldn't tell you if I tried.
As it was, it took several minutes before I could even utter a word to her.
How rude I must have seemed.
She ventured into the silence first, a feat I could not have imagined for the life of me at that moment.
She said something.
I don't remember.
What I do remember was that she spoke in a dialect unknown to me. How disappointed I was, but exhilarated at the same time. She was worse than an abyss. Or a million worlds better.
“Sorry?” I had replied, hoping I had misheard, dooming myself from the possibilities. She said something again and then there was no doubt: we had a barrier. The air compelled me to speak, though I must have known only nature would understand.
I heard the useless words fall.
“Who are you?”
She looked at me as if she had understood, and I distantly wondered if she did. But she said nothing more. I looked at her, she looked at me, and the woods looked upon both of us.
We all waited with bated breath.
Then the agreement came about, formed from the essence of all three of our minds, and it commanded me to commit an impossible act. I remember that agreement, I remember that choice. Closing my eyes, I had smiled sadly and turned away. Opening my eyes, I saw the compressed dirt, the verdant light; I put one foot in front of me – my right, always my right – and I walked, I left. I left.
The entire remnant of that day was tortured.
I circled my house, my yard; I paced left and right, back and forth, regretting with every slipping second that choice. A thousand, a billion other possibilities buzzed, flying before my eyes, each carrying screws and nails to torture my mind.
What if I had motioned for her to follow me? Would she have followed? What if she had followed? Would we be in my house right then, drinking tea? Watching television? Showing her my favorite painting? One of my favorite books? What if I had stayed? Would we have stood like statues throughout time, or would she have said something, done something? She had said something; what did she say? What if she had wanted me to follow her? Would I have followed?
What if? What if? What if?
Once, in the hiatus between times, I stilled and looked around me. I was out in my yard, my green, green yard planted within the woods, and it seemed to expand beyond me, away from me.
I had never felt so alone.
I stood there, in the emptiness that echoed a silence so seemingly different from the peace that had always been my companion. I felt it reverberate within me like I was hollow; not muscles, not bone, not skin, not blood, not human. I had never felt less human than in that moment, in my green yard, and yet never more so. I stood there. I just stood there.
But then the meeting crept back to consume me and the world shrunk again to my thoughts, my mind...the never-ending torture of never-ending possibilities.
And it was torture. Something that my mind delivered to itself, and not even out of masochistic pleasure. It attacked me again and again, forcing me to endure and endure; all throughout the day and most of the night...driven by dreams, by questions, by the impossibilities.
But near the end of the night, as my eyes stared unseeing into the cold fire of the sky, my swirling thoughts at last found its saving grace:
What if she came back?
Instantly, the burn of poisoned hope coursed through me, eradicating in seconds the sadistic mind of regret.
What if she came back?
My blood tingled with the possibility, already impatient for the later afternoon, for the woods, for the trail, for the meeting; skipping over the decision to even venture out to another walk.
What if she came back?
In just a few minutes my future had been chopped out with this thought, allowing nothing more after that meeting, that girl.
What if she came back?
But there was no “what if” anymore: she had to come back, there was no other way, no other possibility. I knew, I couldn't wait, it was going to happen. I had to meet her.
I had lain in bed that night, finally finished with my thoughts; ready for sleep to lift me from insanity. I had lain there, still thinking, waiting...when I had my first dream.
I had dreamt before, of course. Everyone dreams. But this time it was the girl, it was her story; not mine. I had lain there, with the black and purple stars of my eyes, fracturing the black into the rainbow colors of dreams, thinking of the girl...waiting...thinking of the girl...waiting...thinking of the girl...and the story unfolded.
2.
The girl was there. The girl. I saw her in that black ambiguity. I saw her. She had that same look, that look I grew to know so well, the look of complete, complete, terror. I saw her, floating in the black.
Black...black...undulating, swirling, piercing...floating...the storm.
The tumbling, rumbling, roaring boogeymen oceans called waves lifted the girl, having her soar in the black with the grace of a ballerina. She was floating.
Yet her eyes betrayed this scene of grace, her shivering, rodent eyes tunneled in fear of the mighty beasts of god. They screamed in place of her gasping mouth, her searing throat, her bleeding tongue. The world, however, laughed; glorying in the white fireworks of nature's pagan dance, never minding her eyes as the cackling boogeymen dropped and tossed her in the face of fire. But she breathed.
She floated.
She spit the smacking whips of hair away from her face, clenching in the face of fire the damp square of wood underneath her arms. Breath. Float. That's what you have to do to stay alive, she told herself. The boogeymen kept on roaring and the skies kept on flashing, but her mind remained sane.
Stay alive. Stay alive. Stay alive.
This had to pass, these freaks of nature, she would make it.
Stay alive. Stay alive. Stay alive.
Nothing would stop her, she was iron, she was steel, she was man's will.
Stay alive. Stay alive. Stay alive.
The chant kept on drumming as she slipped to oblivion.
3.
My eyes had opened that day with a red fervor, not diminished in the slightest by sleep. Rather, my dream about the girl had seemed to force it to new heights. I could not wait. I dropped out of bed, I grabbed whatever clothes that happened to be in my path, and rushed to the bathroom. The dream's lightening flashed in my eyes as my shaking toothbrush found my teeth, and the thundering waves roared with my drumming heart as I raced to the woods. I missed breakfast that day.
And so I waited on that trail. Waiting, waiting. Agonizing. The shifting, sighing leaves slipped by my eyes and ears, the wood's once-entrancing perfume no longer misting the world with peace. I must have paced that square of trail millions of times that day; I must have screamed enough frustrations to match that of the world's.
Where was she? That was the first question, the first scream, the first hint of doubt that wormed its way into my mind. That morphed to, why wasn't she here? When was she coming? Was she coming at all? If not, why? Why?
That day crawled away from me as I waited, a day that turned to days, days that turned to weeks, and weeks, to months.
She never came.
But once excitement had given way to patience, given way to anxiety, to frustration, to anger, resentment, hatred, thinking, and finally, numbness, I started to think of the possibilities, of the answers to the “why”'s. It had started with the dream, the dream of the storm. I remembered it that day, the first day, as I lay on the dirt in a stupor.
The dancing waves, the fearful eyes, the iron will. That was her beginning, I had decided. How she came to the woods, the trail, why she came, why she didn't return, it began with that storm. Any time before the storm never registered in my mind; I distantly saw that before wasn't the beginning, before wasn't her, before didn't matter.
From that beginning, the skeleton of the girl's life seemed to grow before my eyes. It reached her thoughts, her perceptions, her actions, her interactions; everything leading up to our fateful meeting. She filled those endless hours in place of the chirping, the songs, the rustlings, the peace, and nothing else mattered. My mind thought about her, thought about her, thought about her, and eventually, my heart came to love her; though I couldn't have told you why. All I knew was her, and nothing else mattered.
I wasn't aware of it at the time. She consumed every hour, minute, second, millisecond of my days, but I couldn't see. I couldn't see the burning emptiness she left in her wake, couldn't see the hollow soul she starved to have life. She smothered that awareness, if it had ever been there in the first place, and if any doubts managed to penetrate that smothering force, it was brushed away with a fanatic urgency.
Because nothing else mattered.
4.
She opened her eyes. Gold ringed her vision, and the girl smiled briefly at its warmth before doubling up, violently coughing out the sea. Thin drafts of air sucked past her throat and she collapsed back onto wet sand. She smiled.
She was alive. How or why did not matter. Not in that moment anyway, where she felt the sand, the water, and breathed the burning air, heard the crying gulls. Brilliantly alive. For once.
With trembling arms she crawled away from the surf only to collapse again, laughing, wheezing, laughing. She wondered distantly what had happened to her wooden lifesaver. She almost felt bad for the broken fragment. Blurring thoughts such as these strayed through her mind as she lay in the warmer, drier sands. It embraced her, and she in turn ignored the jagged points of its broken shells.
What now? Where was she?
A part of her, a large part of her, wanted to sink into the glowing sands and never face the world again, but despite this she struggled up to a sitting position. Blue skies, white clouds, yellow sun, stretching seas. But she knew this already; instead she looked behind her. There, it was nothing but green and darkness, wiping the smile from her face.
Where was she?
Almost immediately, as if in answer, a child emerged from the green darkness and spotted her. A child, she thought: children meant parents, parents meant civilization, civilization meant salvation. Or at least food. The child – a boy with striking blue eyes and mud brown hair – was now fearlessly approaching her, and she waited patiently. “Who are you?” the child asked. She answered hoarsely, “A stranger. Can you help me?” The child's face betrayed no emotion. He stared as she stared, but she waited patiently. After the tense hesitation, he eventually nodded. “Come with me.”
They walked together, her with some difficulty, into the body of the forest. For a breathing world, the forest was eerily silent upon their entrance, and she noted this with slight trepidation. Trees darkened the brilliant day with their mute shadows, and the insects flying by did so soundlessly. No animals, not a single rabbit or squirrel, was seen or heard, and even the child's steps were muffled. Feeling panic creep forward in this sudden deafness, she hurriedly blurted something.
“Where are we going?”
The child answered immediately, as if he had expected the question. “To my family,” he said tonelessly. “Do they live far away?” “No.” “Are we almost there?” “Yes.” “How much further?” At this the boy stopped, glaring like parent to child. “No more questions,” he said, his voice pricked with annoyance. More shocked than insulted, she nodded and fell in with the silence.
That silence, however, didn't bother her as much anymore. That silence was the child's culture, and somehow he had included her with his words and with this trek through the forest. She was now a part of the forest, as he was. She felt this, and her eyes smiled as they walked with the silence.
Eventually, they entered a clearing that burned her eyes with light. Even if it burned, she welcomed the light. “Wait here,” the child said. She nodded, and the child briskly walked into the sprawling village of tents laid out before her. It teemed with people, as she had hoped, but she quickly lost the child within their depths. That didn't matter, however: he was coming back. So in the wait, she focused instead on the rainbow stares the village people threw at her, filled with curiosity and fear. They had murky brown eyes, pale green eyes, sky blue eyes, glinting black eyes, and everything in between. All of them had the same mud brown hair.
She met their stares, wanting to understand their actions, wanting to be a part of their lives. Most skirted from this connection, though some glared. Some even smiled.
After a few minutes, one of the smilers drifted towards her and said, “Hello. Who are you?”
She gave the same answer she had given the boy. “A stranger,” she said. The woman, her eyes deep brown, smiled at this answer and looked at her warmly. “That's alright,” she replied, “We are a community of strangers, helping other strangers feel not so strange. There's no need to look so afraid.” “Thank you,” she said, grateful but confused, “But I'm not afraid.” A corner of her mouth twitched. “My mistake. Strangers are often so afraid of other strangers, I just assumed.”
At this point, she saw the boy again, approaching with a man and another woman. They shared his bright blue eyes. The woman too saw them, and said, “Goodbye then, stranger,” before drifting away. She frowned at the woman's sudden disappearance, but decided to ponder her strangeness at some later time.
Once the boy's family stood in front of her, they spoke. “My son says he found a stranger on the beach. Are you the stranger?” asked the mother. She nodded. “Yes.”
“Why were you on the beach?”
She tried to think past the thundering storms, and remembered the wooden lifesaver. “My ship couldn't survive the storm, but I did,” she answered. The father and mother looked at each other then, and she could see their decision. “You can stay with us while you recover,” said the father, now looking at her. “Come with us.”
She walked with them through the bustling village, and she stared appreciatively at the activity, the community.
Kids were running with laundry, their older siblings chasing them down; a woman was roasting a rabbit, another skinning a deer; two men were singing a song, while their friend played the drums; a mother was suckling her infant and a father scolding his son. They were no longer staring, and she was glad: they seemed much more natural this way, as if she was a part of their living rhythm instead of a sudden tear.
Near the edge of the village, she and the boy's family reached an unexpectedly colorful tent. They motioned for her to enter first, and she did, but stood dumbfounded at the entrance. Green, blue, red, pink, yellow, purple, orange; she stood at the precipice of a rainbow. Swirling silk screens hung from the ceiling, plump-looking pillows scattered over the floor, one intricate mat stretched imperially before her, and a skeletal table sat next to its seat; each adorned with wild colors, each clashing magnificently with the patterned walls. It was beautiful.
The family then came in behind her, and she forgot to thank them for the beauty as they began to tell her where she was sleeping, when they usually ate, what they usually ate, that she should rest, that she should not be afraid. Her forgetfulness, however, didn't matter.
They knew with her smile.
5.
There was a breakthrough once. I was sitting in my then regular haunt, the trail in the woods, and the thought suddenly came to me. Why was she so important to me? How did she become so ingrained into my life? I looked around me for an answer, momentarily staggered by the clear indent in the trail where I had spent my waiting hours. I slowly become aware of my growling stomach and wild, oily hair. When had I last eaten or bathed? I asked myself. I couldn't answer, which scared me slightly. I thought back to my previous questions, and found I couldn't answer those either.
That moment was close, but not the ultimate moment. I failed to see the connection between that sudden, dangerous, thought, and the condition I had found myself in. Instead, my eyes wandered back to the trail, to the girl, to the circling, demonizing questions, and I was lost again.
But what would have happened if that moment had proved to be the ultimate moment? Would I have been saved? Would I have gone back to the empty peace of life before the girl? Would I have realized sooner and been able to salvage the remnants of my life?
I would hate to think I would have, to think I was that close to salvation, and had passed it purposefully with scorn. Now, it is too late, everything's too late. I sit here wanting so much more, feeling so much more. What would life have been without the girl? What would life have been without the emptiness of dreams and nature and house and fields, without the worlds of could, would, should, if? Looking back now, there were so many opportunities. Looking back now, there could have been so many possibilities.
Looking back now, I realize I'm still the same as I ever was.
6.
The girl woke up to the dim yellowish light of her home. Grumbling, she retreated back into the warmth of blankets, pillow, sleep, and wondered if it was worth the boy eating her breakfast. Her stomach grumbled back. Sigh. Sweeping the warmth away from her, she got up and reluctantly rubbed sleep from her eyes as she stumbled outside.
“This morning is yellow
With dripping pink clouds
And so we both bellow
With birds' chirping sweet sounds...”
She smiled at the brothers singing outside their tent, waving to them before she went to wash her face in a bin of ice-cold water.
“The world's breeze is blowing
And we run with it, free
While the rivers are flowing
'Side the grass and the trees...”
Slightly shivering now, she nipped back inside to grab an apple and a sip of water. She crunched into the red fruit as she walked through the village and bid people good morning.
“But today it is morning
A time for people to wake
So stop all your snoring
And see the clear lake...”
“Have you seen Kiah?” she asked Raen, who yelled “No!” before blowing past, his sister seconds behind.
“See the pink petals
See the bees and the ants
See falling leaves settle
And the ones above dance...”
“Have you seen Kiah?” she asked Jay, whose deep brown eyes told her no before her mouth could.
“While we talk and we sing
While we love and we play
And we hate over things
And night goes to day...”
Where was that boy? She asked herself, throwing away her apple core and entering the woods. Maybe he was wandering again to the beach, she thought, though it seemed a bit early for that.
“You see there is beauty
In mornings and songs...”
The brothers' voices were fading away as she searched further into the woods, but having heard that song for years now, she sang the ending softly to herself, to the gentle silence of the forest.
“...in lutes saying 'tune me'
in the night's shadows gone.”
“Stranger!”
She whipped around at the cry to see Jay running towards her, her brown eyes widened with fear. “Run, stranger,” she said breathlessly, “We've been attacked.”
***
“We've got to find them,” she said. Jay spared her an exasperated glance before returning to her sparse meal. “I know,” she pushed nevertheless, “But they're my family. And Kiah's only a child -” “If we find them, we find them,” Jay interrupted. “And don't forget they're my family too.”
She scowled. They had been hiding for weeks now. Only once had they returned to the village, to check, to hope, but it had been decimated. The empty silence had chilled her, the sight had killed a part of her. They did not linger long, only long enough for a few tears and a few useless goodbyes, and then they left again.
She wanted to go back. She wanted to find any trails, any clues, anything that might lead them to her family. What else could she do? Jay thought this useless and dangerous, so refused. “The only way they can be found is through fate,” she would say. But fate takes too long. She wanted to search, to find, to know.
That's why she was going to leave Jay. She could survive on her own for a while, and if she perished, she perished trying to find her family. But leaving Jay was going to be difficult; she loved her too, in a way. She wanted to give her every chance to change her mind, though she might have already sensed and accepted her plan. There was understanding in those wise brown eyes.
So with the gray mist of morning the next day, she rose, careful not to wake Jay. A part of her wanted Jay to suddenly sit up and shout out to her, to stop her, to tell her she'll go with her. But the morning stayed silent.
She took one trembling step away from their little camp, and looked back. Jay was still sleeping. She could lie back down and sleep too, she could wake up to the yellow sun, she could face another afternoon of trekking forward aimlessly through the forest, she could continue waiting hopefully for fate to lead them to her family. She could.
She won't. She took one more step, then another, and finally, she left. She left.
The rest of the day was a blur. It was the same as any other day, but this time she was alone, this time she had a goal. She thought of going back to Jay a million times, but she had made her choice. The days after smeared together with the same trees, the same food, the same dirt, the same sky. Traveling through them by herself was lonely, but also peaceful.
As she walked with this peace, with the silence of the forest. she thought, she repeated: She will survive, her family will survive. They were her people, and she will find them. They will be happy again, they will tell her that everything's okay, that they will always be together, that she needn't be afraid. That's what people tell each other, she thought, That's how people survive.
7.
In truth, the ultimate moment was forced upon me, rather than brought out from within. It came from an unfamiliar place: the bed in a white room. I knew, somehow, by the smell that I had been brought to a hospital. I knew, yet could not comprehend. Where was the green, the brown, the dirt, the girl? But those questions echoed distantly, as if from a dream.
Instead, I was caught up in the present. For the first time, it seemed, I saw my skeleton arms, my fleshless fingers, my jutting ribs. I felt my face and saw bones instead of flesh, space instead of skin.
Who am I?
That was my first thought, and a part of me must have felt the emptiness as tears fell into the hollows of former flesh. Who am I? I couldn't answer, I wouldn't answer, but a part of me tried, that part of me cried. Who am I? I thought, suddenly, of the girl, but found I hated her; she was acid to my soul, because I realized then, that she was nothing. Who am I? I don't know, I didn't know, I thought, I will never know. Who am I? I thought of the years wandering the woods, of the months creating the girl, and I felt the emptiness, felt the black of nothingness. Who am I? I am nothing, I concluded. I am nothing.
I cried consciously then, with the remnants of my being. What else could I have done?
I hated myself, I despised myself.
So I laid there, in the bed of that white room, like I had once on a trail, a lifetime ago. This time, however, I did not think, I did not dream. The dead don't dream.
And what else could I be but dead, once I had concluded I wasn't alive?
The world swirled in that time with black hatred, despair, self-loathing. They thrived on the nothingness, and I had no thoughts of escape.
8.
After days, weeks, and months, she found them.
It had happened after the meeting with the stranger.
She remembered that meeting, that stranger, only as a marker, as the day before her true meeting happened, where she finally hugged the boy, his mother, his father, where she finally cried with her brother, her mother, her father.
She felt their skinniness as she became aware of hers, but that didn't matter in that moment. “You're safe, we're safe, don't worry, don't be afraid, we're together now, we'll always be together,” they had said. She laughed in relief at the words, having waited to hear them for so long. The months of empty silence, the weeks of desperation, the days of haunting fear, they all went away. None of it mattered anymore, what mattered was their presence, their voices, their faces, their smiles.
They made her smile, and she had never felt so alive.
Years later, she remembered that stranger, feeling grateful in some way. That meeting was somehow tied to her family, but beyond that, she had spared the stranger no more thought. Now, however, that day came back to her as she looked over her bustling family.
“Goodbye, stranger,” she said suddenly, “Thank you.”
9.
Eventually, however, I had a thought. It wasn't bleak, it wasn't dreamed; it was reason. I came to realize that I could not be nothing, if I was something to be despised. I lingered on that for a moment – it was a curious thought.
But from there, from that small questioning thought, I emerged. Slowly, I started to see myself again, and, more importantly, I began to see the world, I began to see the people.
A stranger in the hospital, a nurse, a doctor, a former colleague, a psychiatrist, another stranger, an old friend, a new friend, a few more strangers.
People. Living, breathing, speaking. Knowing, understanding. I saw them, I spoke with them, and I felt a little less empty. They were so much more than the ones of my dreams, than the leaves of the trees. They were beings with their own thoughts, their own souls, and I began to see that I am like them.
These people, I knew, would remember me. I would become a part of them. And they, I realized, became a part of me. I realized this, and I felt a little less empty.
I became so much more than the girl, and I feel a little less empty.
I met a girl once. She had hair, eyes, skin; a pretty face. I can't remember much else about her physical appearance now. It was so long ago.
It had occurred on one of my trodden trails, during one of my many musings. She had startled me; not once had I ever met anyone on those trails, and not once had I met anyone since. Some would, of course, boast that I owned the woods with the trails, but I believed it was very much the other way around. In either case, we had a special kind of relationship, the woods and I, almost intimate, and no one had ever come between us.
The presence of the girl that day, needless to say, ruffled that intimacy. When I met the girl, when her presence first registered in my mind and then proceeded to freeze it, the leaves stopped rustling, the wind stopped blowing, the birds stopped singing, the squirrels stopped scurrying. At our meeting, nature fell to the backdrop as the girl absorbed my unexpected, but instantly avid attention.
She stared as I stared. The uncertainty of our spontaneous acquaintance trembled between us; while all the while, the bristling acid of jealousy started pouring through the punctures of nature's hold on me.
Nature seethed at the tear in our relationship, but I myself was barely aware. I knew that something had changed with that girl's presence: I could feel the shift in the silence. Later I would scream that I had no choice in the matter, that it wasn't my fault, that it had all been the girl. But then, at that moment, at that meeting, I could only stare as she stared.
Before the girl, how long had it been since I'd seen a human? Too long.
Before the girl, how long had it been since I'd talked to a human? I couldn't tell you if I tried.
As it was, it took several minutes before I could even utter a word to her.
How rude I must have seemed.
She ventured into the silence first, a feat I could not have imagined for the life of me at that moment.
She said something.
I don't remember.
What I do remember was that she spoke in a dialect unknown to me. How disappointed I was, but exhilarated at the same time. She was worse than an abyss. Or a million worlds better.
“Sorry?” I had replied, hoping I had misheard, dooming myself from the possibilities. She said something again and then there was no doubt: we had a barrier. The air compelled me to speak, though I must have known only nature would understand.
I heard the useless words fall.
“Who are you?”
She looked at me as if she had understood, and I distantly wondered if she did. But she said nothing more. I looked at her, she looked at me, and the woods looked upon both of us.
We all waited with bated breath.
Then the agreement came about, formed from the essence of all three of our minds, and it commanded me to commit an impossible act. I remember that agreement, I remember that choice. Closing my eyes, I had smiled sadly and turned away. Opening my eyes, I saw the compressed dirt, the verdant light; I put one foot in front of me – my right, always my right – and I walked, I left. I left.
The entire remnant of that day was tortured.
I circled my house, my yard; I paced left and right, back and forth, regretting with every slipping second that choice. A thousand, a billion other possibilities buzzed, flying before my eyes, each carrying screws and nails to torture my mind.
What if I had motioned for her to follow me? Would she have followed? What if she had followed? Would we be in my house right then, drinking tea? Watching television? Showing her my favorite painting? One of my favorite books? What if I had stayed? Would we have stood like statues throughout time, or would she have said something, done something? She had said something; what did she say? What if she had wanted me to follow her? Would I have followed?
What if? What if? What if?
Once, in the hiatus between times, I stilled and looked around me. I was out in my yard, my green, green yard planted within the woods, and it seemed to expand beyond me, away from me.
I had never felt so alone.
I stood there, in the emptiness that echoed a silence so seemingly different from the peace that had always been my companion. I felt it reverberate within me like I was hollow; not muscles, not bone, not skin, not blood, not human. I had never felt less human than in that moment, in my green yard, and yet never more so. I stood there. I just stood there.
But then the meeting crept back to consume me and the world shrunk again to my thoughts, my mind...the never-ending torture of never-ending possibilities.
And it was torture. Something that my mind delivered to itself, and not even out of masochistic pleasure. It attacked me again and again, forcing me to endure and endure; all throughout the day and most of the night...driven by dreams, by questions, by the impossibilities.
But near the end of the night, as my eyes stared unseeing into the cold fire of the sky, my swirling thoughts at last found its saving grace:
What if she came back?
Instantly, the burn of poisoned hope coursed through me, eradicating in seconds the sadistic mind of regret.
What if she came back?
My blood tingled with the possibility, already impatient for the later afternoon, for the woods, for the trail, for the meeting; skipping over the decision to even venture out to another walk.
What if she came back?
In just a few minutes my future had been chopped out with this thought, allowing nothing more after that meeting, that girl.
What if she came back?
But there was no “what if” anymore: she had to come back, there was no other way, no other possibility. I knew, I couldn't wait, it was going to happen. I had to meet her.
I had lain in bed that night, finally finished with my thoughts; ready for sleep to lift me from insanity. I had lain there, still thinking, waiting...when I had my first dream.
I had dreamt before, of course. Everyone dreams. But this time it was the girl, it was her story; not mine. I had lain there, with the black and purple stars of my eyes, fracturing the black into the rainbow colors of dreams, thinking of the girl...waiting...thinking of the girl...waiting...thinking of the girl...and the story unfolded.
2.
The girl was there. The girl. I saw her in that black ambiguity. I saw her. She had that same look, that look I grew to know so well, the look of complete, complete, terror. I saw her, floating in the black.
Black...black...undulating, swirling, piercing...floating...the storm.
The tumbling, rumbling, roaring boogeymen oceans called waves lifted the girl, having her soar in the black with the grace of a ballerina. She was floating.
Yet her eyes betrayed this scene of grace, her shivering, rodent eyes tunneled in fear of the mighty beasts of god. They screamed in place of her gasping mouth, her searing throat, her bleeding tongue. The world, however, laughed; glorying in the white fireworks of nature's pagan dance, never minding her eyes as the cackling boogeymen dropped and tossed her in the face of fire. But she breathed.
She floated.
She spit the smacking whips of hair away from her face, clenching in the face of fire the damp square of wood underneath her arms. Breath. Float. That's what you have to do to stay alive, she told herself. The boogeymen kept on roaring and the skies kept on flashing, but her mind remained sane.
Stay alive. Stay alive. Stay alive.
This had to pass, these freaks of nature, she would make it.
Stay alive. Stay alive. Stay alive.
Nothing would stop her, she was iron, she was steel, she was man's will.
Stay alive. Stay alive. Stay alive.
The chant kept on drumming as she slipped to oblivion.
3.
My eyes had opened that day with a red fervor, not diminished in the slightest by sleep. Rather, my dream about the girl had seemed to force it to new heights. I could not wait. I dropped out of bed, I grabbed whatever clothes that happened to be in my path, and rushed to the bathroom. The dream's lightening flashed in my eyes as my shaking toothbrush found my teeth, and the thundering waves roared with my drumming heart as I raced to the woods. I missed breakfast that day.
And so I waited on that trail. Waiting, waiting. Agonizing. The shifting, sighing leaves slipped by my eyes and ears, the wood's once-entrancing perfume no longer misting the world with peace. I must have paced that square of trail millions of times that day; I must have screamed enough frustrations to match that of the world's.
Where was she? That was the first question, the first scream, the first hint of doubt that wormed its way into my mind. That morphed to, why wasn't she here? When was she coming? Was she coming at all? If not, why? Why?
That day crawled away from me as I waited, a day that turned to days, days that turned to weeks, and weeks, to months.
She never came.
But once excitement had given way to patience, given way to anxiety, to frustration, to anger, resentment, hatred, thinking, and finally, numbness, I started to think of the possibilities, of the answers to the “why”'s. It had started with the dream, the dream of the storm. I remembered it that day, the first day, as I lay on the dirt in a stupor.
The dancing waves, the fearful eyes, the iron will. That was her beginning, I had decided. How she came to the woods, the trail, why she came, why she didn't return, it began with that storm. Any time before the storm never registered in my mind; I distantly saw that before wasn't the beginning, before wasn't her, before didn't matter.
From that beginning, the skeleton of the girl's life seemed to grow before my eyes. It reached her thoughts, her perceptions, her actions, her interactions; everything leading up to our fateful meeting. She filled those endless hours in place of the chirping, the songs, the rustlings, the peace, and nothing else mattered. My mind thought about her, thought about her, thought about her, and eventually, my heart came to love her; though I couldn't have told you why. All I knew was her, and nothing else mattered.
I wasn't aware of it at the time. She consumed every hour, minute, second, millisecond of my days, but I couldn't see. I couldn't see the burning emptiness she left in her wake, couldn't see the hollow soul she starved to have life. She smothered that awareness, if it had ever been there in the first place, and if any doubts managed to penetrate that smothering force, it was brushed away with a fanatic urgency.
Because nothing else mattered.
4.
She opened her eyes. Gold ringed her vision, and the girl smiled briefly at its warmth before doubling up, violently coughing out the sea. Thin drafts of air sucked past her throat and she collapsed back onto wet sand. She smiled.
She was alive. How or why did not matter. Not in that moment anyway, where she felt the sand, the water, and breathed the burning air, heard the crying gulls. Brilliantly alive. For once.
With trembling arms she crawled away from the surf only to collapse again, laughing, wheezing, laughing. She wondered distantly what had happened to her wooden lifesaver. She almost felt bad for the broken fragment. Blurring thoughts such as these strayed through her mind as she lay in the warmer, drier sands. It embraced her, and she in turn ignored the jagged points of its broken shells.
What now? Where was she?
A part of her, a large part of her, wanted to sink into the glowing sands and never face the world again, but despite this she struggled up to a sitting position. Blue skies, white clouds, yellow sun, stretching seas. But she knew this already; instead she looked behind her. There, it was nothing but green and darkness, wiping the smile from her face.
Where was she?
Almost immediately, as if in answer, a child emerged from the green darkness and spotted her. A child, she thought: children meant parents, parents meant civilization, civilization meant salvation. Or at least food. The child – a boy with striking blue eyes and mud brown hair – was now fearlessly approaching her, and she waited patiently. “Who are you?” the child asked. She answered hoarsely, “A stranger. Can you help me?” The child's face betrayed no emotion. He stared as she stared, but she waited patiently. After the tense hesitation, he eventually nodded. “Come with me.”
They walked together, her with some difficulty, into the body of the forest. For a breathing world, the forest was eerily silent upon their entrance, and she noted this with slight trepidation. Trees darkened the brilliant day with their mute shadows, and the insects flying by did so soundlessly. No animals, not a single rabbit or squirrel, was seen or heard, and even the child's steps were muffled. Feeling panic creep forward in this sudden deafness, she hurriedly blurted something.
“Where are we going?”
The child answered immediately, as if he had expected the question. “To my family,” he said tonelessly. “Do they live far away?” “No.” “Are we almost there?” “Yes.” “How much further?” At this the boy stopped, glaring like parent to child. “No more questions,” he said, his voice pricked with annoyance. More shocked than insulted, she nodded and fell in with the silence.
That silence, however, didn't bother her as much anymore. That silence was the child's culture, and somehow he had included her with his words and with this trek through the forest. She was now a part of the forest, as he was. She felt this, and her eyes smiled as they walked with the silence.
Eventually, they entered a clearing that burned her eyes with light. Even if it burned, she welcomed the light. “Wait here,” the child said. She nodded, and the child briskly walked into the sprawling village of tents laid out before her. It teemed with people, as she had hoped, but she quickly lost the child within their depths. That didn't matter, however: he was coming back. So in the wait, she focused instead on the rainbow stares the village people threw at her, filled with curiosity and fear. They had murky brown eyes, pale green eyes, sky blue eyes, glinting black eyes, and everything in between. All of them had the same mud brown hair.
She met their stares, wanting to understand their actions, wanting to be a part of their lives. Most skirted from this connection, though some glared. Some even smiled.
After a few minutes, one of the smilers drifted towards her and said, “Hello. Who are you?”
She gave the same answer she had given the boy. “A stranger,” she said. The woman, her eyes deep brown, smiled at this answer and looked at her warmly. “That's alright,” she replied, “We are a community of strangers, helping other strangers feel not so strange. There's no need to look so afraid.” “Thank you,” she said, grateful but confused, “But I'm not afraid.” A corner of her mouth twitched. “My mistake. Strangers are often so afraid of other strangers, I just assumed.”
At this point, she saw the boy again, approaching with a man and another woman. They shared his bright blue eyes. The woman too saw them, and said, “Goodbye then, stranger,” before drifting away. She frowned at the woman's sudden disappearance, but decided to ponder her strangeness at some later time.
Once the boy's family stood in front of her, they spoke. “My son says he found a stranger on the beach. Are you the stranger?” asked the mother. She nodded. “Yes.”
“Why were you on the beach?”
She tried to think past the thundering storms, and remembered the wooden lifesaver. “My ship couldn't survive the storm, but I did,” she answered. The father and mother looked at each other then, and she could see their decision. “You can stay with us while you recover,” said the father, now looking at her. “Come with us.”
She walked with them through the bustling village, and she stared appreciatively at the activity, the community.
Kids were running with laundry, their older siblings chasing them down; a woman was roasting a rabbit, another skinning a deer; two men were singing a song, while their friend played the drums; a mother was suckling her infant and a father scolding his son. They were no longer staring, and she was glad: they seemed much more natural this way, as if she was a part of their living rhythm instead of a sudden tear.
Near the edge of the village, she and the boy's family reached an unexpectedly colorful tent. They motioned for her to enter first, and she did, but stood dumbfounded at the entrance. Green, blue, red, pink, yellow, purple, orange; she stood at the precipice of a rainbow. Swirling silk screens hung from the ceiling, plump-looking pillows scattered over the floor, one intricate mat stretched imperially before her, and a skeletal table sat next to its seat; each adorned with wild colors, each clashing magnificently with the patterned walls. It was beautiful.
The family then came in behind her, and she forgot to thank them for the beauty as they began to tell her where she was sleeping, when they usually ate, what they usually ate, that she should rest, that she should not be afraid. Her forgetfulness, however, didn't matter.
They knew with her smile.
5.
There was a breakthrough once. I was sitting in my then regular haunt, the trail in the woods, and the thought suddenly came to me. Why was she so important to me? How did she become so ingrained into my life? I looked around me for an answer, momentarily staggered by the clear indent in the trail where I had spent my waiting hours. I slowly become aware of my growling stomach and wild, oily hair. When had I last eaten or bathed? I asked myself. I couldn't answer, which scared me slightly. I thought back to my previous questions, and found I couldn't answer those either.
That moment was close, but not the ultimate moment. I failed to see the connection between that sudden, dangerous, thought, and the condition I had found myself in. Instead, my eyes wandered back to the trail, to the girl, to the circling, demonizing questions, and I was lost again.
But what would have happened if that moment had proved to be the ultimate moment? Would I have been saved? Would I have gone back to the empty peace of life before the girl? Would I have realized sooner and been able to salvage the remnants of my life?
I would hate to think I would have, to think I was that close to salvation, and had passed it purposefully with scorn. Now, it is too late, everything's too late. I sit here wanting so much more, feeling so much more. What would life have been without the girl? What would life have been without the emptiness of dreams and nature and house and fields, without the worlds of could, would, should, if? Looking back now, there were so many opportunities. Looking back now, there could have been so many possibilities.
Looking back now, I realize I'm still the same as I ever was.
6.
The girl woke up to the dim yellowish light of her home. Grumbling, she retreated back into the warmth of blankets, pillow, sleep, and wondered if it was worth the boy eating her breakfast. Her stomach grumbled back. Sigh. Sweeping the warmth away from her, she got up and reluctantly rubbed sleep from her eyes as she stumbled outside.
“This morning is yellow
With dripping pink clouds
And so we both bellow
With birds' chirping sweet sounds...”
She smiled at the brothers singing outside their tent, waving to them before she went to wash her face in a bin of ice-cold water.
“The world's breeze is blowing
And we run with it, free
While the rivers are flowing
'Side the grass and the trees...”
Slightly shivering now, she nipped back inside to grab an apple and a sip of water. She crunched into the red fruit as she walked through the village and bid people good morning.
“But today it is morning
A time for people to wake
So stop all your snoring
And see the clear lake...”
“Have you seen Kiah?” she asked Raen, who yelled “No!” before blowing past, his sister seconds behind.
“See the pink petals
See the bees and the ants
See falling leaves settle
And the ones above dance...”
“Have you seen Kiah?” she asked Jay, whose deep brown eyes told her no before her mouth could.
“While we talk and we sing
While we love and we play
And we hate over things
And night goes to day...”
Where was that boy? She asked herself, throwing away her apple core and entering the woods. Maybe he was wandering again to the beach, she thought, though it seemed a bit early for that.
“You see there is beauty
In mornings and songs...”
The brothers' voices were fading away as she searched further into the woods, but having heard that song for years now, she sang the ending softly to herself, to the gentle silence of the forest.
“...in lutes saying 'tune me'
in the night's shadows gone.”
“Stranger!”
She whipped around at the cry to see Jay running towards her, her brown eyes widened with fear. “Run, stranger,” she said breathlessly, “We've been attacked.”
***
“We've got to find them,” she said. Jay spared her an exasperated glance before returning to her sparse meal. “I know,” she pushed nevertheless, “But they're my family. And Kiah's only a child -” “If we find them, we find them,” Jay interrupted. “And don't forget they're my family too.”
She scowled. They had been hiding for weeks now. Only once had they returned to the village, to check, to hope, but it had been decimated. The empty silence had chilled her, the sight had killed a part of her. They did not linger long, only long enough for a few tears and a few useless goodbyes, and then they left again.
She wanted to go back. She wanted to find any trails, any clues, anything that might lead them to her family. What else could she do? Jay thought this useless and dangerous, so refused. “The only way they can be found is through fate,” she would say. But fate takes too long. She wanted to search, to find, to know.
That's why she was going to leave Jay. She could survive on her own for a while, and if she perished, she perished trying to find her family. But leaving Jay was going to be difficult; she loved her too, in a way. She wanted to give her every chance to change her mind, though she might have already sensed and accepted her plan. There was understanding in those wise brown eyes.
So with the gray mist of morning the next day, she rose, careful not to wake Jay. A part of her wanted Jay to suddenly sit up and shout out to her, to stop her, to tell her she'll go with her. But the morning stayed silent.
She took one trembling step away from their little camp, and looked back. Jay was still sleeping. She could lie back down and sleep too, she could wake up to the yellow sun, she could face another afternoon of trekking forward aimlessly through the forest, she could continue waiting hopefully for fate to lead them to her family. She could.
She won't. She took one more step, then another, and finally, she left. She left.
The rest of the day was a blur. It was the same as any other day, but this time she was alone, this time she had a goal. She thought of going back to Jay a million times, but she had made her choice. The days after smeared together with the same trees, the same food, the same dirt, the same sky. Traveling through them by herself was lonely, but also peaceful.
As she walked with this peace, with the silence of the forest. she thought, she repeated: She will survive, her family will survive. They were her people, and she will find them. They will be happy again, they will tell her that everything's okay, that they will always be together, that she needn't be afraid. That's what people tell each other, she thought, That's how people survive.
7.
In truth, the ultimate moment was forced upon me, rather than brought out from within. It came from an unfamiliar place: the bed in a white room. I knew, somehow, by the smell that I had been brought to a hospital. I knew, yet could not comprehend. Where was the green, the brown, the dirt, the girl? But those questions echoed distantly, as if from a dream.
Instead, I was caught up in the present. For the first time, it seemed, I saw my skeleton arms, my fleshless fingers, my jutting ribs. I felt my face and saw bones instead of flesh, space instead of skin.
Who am I?
That was my first thought, and a part of me must have felt the emptiness as tears fell into the hollows of former flesh. Who am I? I couldn't answer, I wouldn't answer, but a part of me tried, that part of me cried. Who am I? I thought, suddenly, of the girl, but found I hated her; she was acid to my soul, because I realized then, that she was nothing. Who am I? I don't know, I didn't know, I thought, I will never know. Who am I? I thought of the years wandering the woods, of the months creating the girl, and I felt the emptiness, felt the black of nothingness. Who am I? I am nothing, I concluded. I am nothing.
I cried consciously then, with the remnants of my being. What else could I have done?
I hated myself, I despised myself.
So I laid there, in the bed of that white room, like I had once on a trail, a lifetime ago. This time, however, I did not think, I did not dream. The dead don't dream.
And what else could I be but dead, once I had concluded I wasn't alive?
The world swirled in that time with black hatred, despair, self-loathing. They thrived on the nothingness, and I had no thoughts of escape.
8.
After days, weeks, and months, she found them.
It had happened after the meeting with the stranger.
She remembered that meeting, that stranger, only as a marker, as the day before her true meeting happened, where she finally hugged the boy, his mother, his father, where she finally cried with her brother, her mother, her father.
She felt their skinniness as she became aware of hers, but that didn't matter in that moment. “You're safe, we're safe, don't worry, don't be afraid, we're together now, we'll always be together,” they had said. She laughed in relief at the words, having waited to hear them for so long. The months of empty silence, the weeks of desperation, the days of haunting fear, they all went away. None of it mattered anymore, what mattered was their presence, their voices, their faces, their smiles.
They made her smile, and she had never felt so alive.
Years later, she remembered that stranger, feeling grateful in some way. That meeting was somehow tied to her family, but beyond that, she had spared the stranger no more thought. Now, however, that day came back to her as she looked over her bustling family.
“Goodbye, stranger,” she said suddenly, “Thank you.”
9.
Eventually, however, I had a thought. It wasn't bleak, it wasn't dreamed; it was reason. I came to realize that I could not be nothing, if I was something to be despised. I lingered on that for a moment – it was a curious thought.
But from there, from that small questioning thought, I emerged. Slowly, I started to see myself again, and, more importantly, I began to see the world, I began to see the people.
A stranger in the hospital, a nurse, a doctor, a former colleague, a psychiatrist, another stranger, an old friend, a new friend, a few more strangers.
People. Living, breathing, speaking. Knowing, understanding. I saw them, I spoke with them, and I felt a little less empty. They were so much more than the ones of my dreams, than the leaves of the trees. They were beings with their own thoughts, their own souls, and I began to see that I am like them.
These people, I knew, would remember me. I would become a part of them. And they, I realized, became a part of me. I realized this, and I felt a little less empty.
I became so much more than the girl, and I feel a little less empty.