We made our way through the forest at dawn under branches and through brush until reaching a road. The sun burning on the horizon. A full night of not sleeping.
Beyond the woods opened to a large verdant farmer’s field. We began walking around the perimeter of the field in a nonsensical circle skirting the edge of the trees and almost back to the same place we started.
I looked at the tall waving vibrant sea of grass rhythmically swaying in the beat of the breeze. An ocean of motion flowing. Colors glowed in the morning light and became cartoons with hard edge shapes. Mesmerized I knelt down and looked at my Mickey Mouse hands.
“I think its breathing.” I said.
“Yeah.” he replied and I looked up at him seeing his dark hair dancing like fire. Black flames melting the flesh off his face. Bones and skull grinning into the morning.
“I don’t think my head is right.” I said. “It’s all so weird.”
“Yeah.”
“I need to hide.” I said as the madness gripped me for the first time in my life.
“Let it be man. Just relax. Let it be.”
We tried to walk down a side gravel road gripped in fear seeking shelter in thin slits of shadow merging with the animated cartoon landscape. A dead end and true terror flooded into me. I had lost all control, my mind, my body, a puddle of synthetic skin, a shopping bag for a soul, a plastic shell housing what? A thought, thinking a thought, am I just a thought?
Lost,
Endless,
Void.
Cartoon madness.
The monster on my shoulder. The driver in my head. I could not turn it off. Seeing too much.
He stopped to take some notes pulling out an ink pen from his backpack. The black ink exploded all over his hands. A cold wind. Parts of flesh merging with the thick fluid dripping. Parts of us fall off, out of our pockets and out of our minds. I could not think of anything to say. All of me wanted to scream and run. Shout into the void. Run into the woods. A melting bag of fear.
“I need to get out of here.” I said. “I don’t think I’m doing so good…”
We continued walking down the long endless black road. Miles as my identity burned away. Ego fighting itself to survive. An alien in an alien world we entered a small town as intruders. Cars looking as they drove by. Angry loud engines eating the world and tearing into my mind. I needed sanctuary. I needed it to stop, but the road was endless and we were nowhere. New arriving people waking to a world I didn’t recognize.
We walked and walked. Pretending to be invisible as everyone watched from their front yards. Two invaders mad in rags dragging themselves along a country road. Strangers watching strangers.
Miles without words. Our legs rubber joints scratched harsh dry earth, a man made river of rock wearing down our bones. Endless hours weaving through the morning. Synthetic existence, small and insignificant. I am a fly on the back of a giant fighting to cure itself. Puppet strings pulling pieces of meat, exposed in the sun.
We stopped trying to find the center and sat on a small bridge over a slow creek. I saw my reflection far down below. Do I recognize the beast with a dozen eyes? The shadow of man looked up and I dropped a small stone into his face. Ripples echoed circles from the reflection. I am nothing but a disappearing memory.
To this day I don’t know if we found it, or if it found us: home base. At an intersection in a quiet corner of town we stumbled upon the empty baseball diamond full of shallow brown puddles. Next to the baseball diamond we found rest on picnic tables under a roof. Temporary relief. The Universe began to thread itself back together. I laid on the table top grasping at the bits of myself floating off. He sat staring at the puddles disappointed at the missed interjection of enlightenment while I traveled with my demons in a hell no one else could see.
Each moment escalated by intensity and meaning. Birds chirped and time did not move. No one bothered the two bedraggled teenagers. The world had stopped and no one else existed.
I was thankful for the available unlocked restroom.
