Figure In the Field

She called to me through my window. It seemed nice outside, peaceful. The rain came down softly and quietly, her voice cut easily through the sounds of droplets on puddles. I met her gaze and she called to me again. Though I didn't see her mouth move, I heard her voice. 

On nights like these, I sometimes wonder if she will show up. The first time I heard her call was some time ago, and I ignored it. I allowed the static in my head and the beating of my heart to drown her out, and slithered into bed to enjoy another sleepless night. On her following visit, something strange happened. The static stopped, pure silence. After fighting for some time, I slept soundly. I've had a few more nights of sleep since her first appearance. In each of them, she showed up at around the same time, on the same kind of nights: when the air is still and the city hangs in a pregnant pause, holding its breath. 

She hadn't come around for a while. I was surprised to see how much I missed her visits. Not only the rest she brought, but I missed her too. My only friend, in a sense. On nights when the time felt right, I couldn't help but build up expectations. I thought up increasingly intricate scenarios to explain her delay, and eventually her absence. This gave me a way to pass the nights. Time wore on and my imagination faltered. The scenarios slowed down until I finally gave up hoping. 

And yet, there she was outside my window once again. As I looked at her and the static drifted away, I felt compelled to stare a little longer. She looked different this time, almost desperate. Her eyes pleaded with me to join her in the gentle rainfall. Caught in her vision, my body was drawn towards her. Before I had a moment to consider it, I was obliging. I had slipped on my shoes and was headed outside. When I reached the front door, the handle felt heavy, immovable. I struggled with it for a moment, a final opportunity to change course. A deep breath, a moment with my eyes shut. The handle moved swiftly under my grip and the sound of rain grew slightly louder.

She met my gaze and her expression changed. She was happy to see me. In the meek rainfall, she looked ethereal. It wasn't a windy night, but her wispy hair swayed back and forth under the brilliant glow of streetlight. Her eyes shone like the moon itself, her posture was confident and domineering. I considered going back inside and accepting the gift of sleep, but again my feet were already in control. I walked directly towards her, not able, even, to dodge puddles or changes in terrain. One foot in front of the other, no straying.  

As I approached her, the details in her face filled in and I grew more captivated. When I was close enough to really see her, to begin to feel her presence, she turned and left. When she turned her head, I felt a horrible twang in my chest; perhaps I had made a mistake. I got my first look at her neck and her back, and she marched forward, away from me. With every step I wanted to turn back, to run away and forget my transgressions of tonight, but my legs carried me forward and forward and forward. She picked up her pace, and I did as well. Walking, then jogging, then sprinting, we made our way through the streets. Just when I felt I was catching up, that I could maybe just reach out and touch the hair that trailed behind her, she hit a new top speed.

Like lion and gazelle, we ran together. I followed her every step, making sure not to go outside of the path she had taken. My vision blurred all around me, tunneling entirely on her as she bounded along. My surroundings lost all meaning. Soon the city streets became dirt paths. The fuzzy shapes of buildings in my periphery were replaced with wide open fields. I matched her stride for stride at our inhuman pace, fighting the urge to get on all fours and continue the chase. The fields became dense, the grass replaced with a darker shade of green. She whipped back and forth, zigzagging through trees and debris left in the forest for years. My shoes had come apart by now, I felt each particle of dirt under my bare feet. The trees around us grew in number and in size, but they were incapable of slowing us down. They did succeed, however, in shrouding her figure. I lost sight of her, but couldn't stop moving forward. My breath was ragged and my legs ached until eventually, the forest became increasingly sparse. The dirt and roots on the ground were replaced by sand. The sound of waves broke my acute focus. I slowed to a walk.

She sat still on the beach. Her backside on the ground, her arms wrapped around her knees, her toes in the sand. I moved towards her calmly; the chase was over. I sat down beside her, matching her position. It felt good to breathe her air. To share a space with her. I could reach out and touch her, finally within arm's reach. I didn't, though, only enjoying the energy that radiated off of her skin. Warmth leaked out of every one of her pores and filled me up. For the first time in a long time, I felt good. Happy. 

We sat together for a little while. Only the crashing of the waves and the drizzling of the rain broke the silence. Sometimes in life there is a collection of moments so pure, so whole, that to speak would only serve as an interruption. The moon and the stars and the vast ocean begged us not to interrupt, to soak in as much of them as we could hold, and we seemed to be in silent agreement. It doesn't happen often, a time like this, but when it does, it's nice. Of course, all good things must end. But it was nice while it lasted.

"Why haven't you joined me before?" Her voice hung in the air, each word passing in front of my eyes before dissipating into the night. "I've come many times now and you've never come outside and joined me. I was starting to believe you never would."

I hadn't realized that she longed for me as well. "I don't know. I'm sorry for that. I hate to think that you spent nights waiting for me. I really am sorry." I didn't turn to see her face in response, but I could feel she was disappointed. Sometimes sorry isn't enough, I suppose. If I could go back in time, I would shout at my former self. I was a fool then and I'm sure I would be a fool many times again. But there was no going back, there was only now. Only the waves crashing on the beach, only the rain gently falling on the sand, only her muted breath filling the air around us. 

Our moments together were cruelly limited, so we had to make up for lost time. I turned to her. "Tell me about yourself, please."

"There is nothing to tell, really. Everything you've seen of me is all there is." She turned to meet my eyeline. She looked so far inside of me, I was worried she would get startled and run off again. 

"That can't be true." My throat tightened around the words. "Surely you exist outside of my gaze, when I turn away you're still there. When I blink, you live a million lives I'll never see."

"What difference does it make? The things that you can't see may make for charming anecdotes, but that's really all they are. I do not exist outside of your gaze, not for you at least. Nothing truly does. Who is to say it all doesn't disappear each time you blink? And reappear the instant that you open your eyes?"

I looked down for a moment at the sand around our feet. I closed my eyes and reached out for a handful. Thankfully, there it was. With my eyes closed, the rain continued to moisten my forehead, the waves continued to fill my ears. I turned back to her. "I'm not sure I understand. I'd like to know what you do without me, what your life is like. I don't think it's a particularly difficult request."

"You aren't listening." She sounded tired. "Maybe I continue when you fall asleep, maybe I don't. Even I am not sure. You see the world through your own eyes, only and always. It is impossible to imagine what mine is like, or if there even is one. Your experience is the only one that exists. That is the only one you can be sure of.

"This time we are spending together, this you can be sure of. But only now, only while we are in it. This beach is real, but it is entirely yours. When we eventually leave this beach, it will cease to exist. The millions of grains of sand will slip away into nothingness until you come back to them. When I slip out of your gaze, I am no longer real, the moon, the stars, they are not real. They exist only as often as you perceive them. There is nothing about me that you don't know, because I am only as much as you perceive of me. You exist in your universe, there is nothing in it that you don't know. Why don't you tell me about yourself, since you can be sure of that."

I felt as though asking for more clarification would only exasperate her, so I didn't. I suppose she was right, in a way. I took a moment before answering. "Well really, I only exist in your universe. The rest of the time, I don't know what I am. I'm not a man, I'm something less. I'm operating on autopilot, pantomiming the life of a sentient being. Truth be told, I don't remember the days I spend without you. I know what's happening while it happens, but as soon as it's done, I haven't the slightest recollection. But it doesn't matter, because I'm programmed to move on to the next thing. The next task or lack thereof. My universe has gaping holes in it, only you make it whole. It really isn't much of a universe at all. Maybe I'm not real at all. Maybe when you blink, I disappear entirely."

We sat silent for a little while after that. Maybe my answer didn't please her, or maybe it pleased her so much she had nothing to add. Maybe that was the point. Our life was made of fragments, only complete while in the presence of each other. Each moment spent apart was another lost in time. The moments spent together would live forever, cemented in perpetuity. Maybe I was continuing to miss the point. She didn't give me any indication one way or the other. 

I took a moment to think about myself, the person I was. I felt the weight of my skin on my bones and the rhythm of my breath. I pictured the neck that held up my thoughts and the skull that caged them. My overwhelmed eyes and the thin curtain that shielded them. Two legs, two arms, a torso to hold it all together. It all seemed so pointless, like a waste of organic material. I felt as though I'd taken bits and pieces of other people to desperately cobble together a person. That my life was a collection of stolen moments.

The more I thought, the more disgusted I became. I pictured the imperfections I'd spent time documenting. Shoulders too small for the head above them, a chest that was sunken in defeat. Elbows that protrude out too much, wrists too small for their respective hands, nails bitten beyond repair. Directionless feet forced to move the carcass around, legs that wobble constantly under the weight of their task.

"Is that all you are?" Her voice interrupted my list. 

"Yes. That is all I am. I am the weary, beaten vessel where a soul should be, or maybe once was, but has since been vacated. I am hollow, nothing more than an empty vase. I am the feet that run blindly toward a goal that has not been decided. I know nothing of what I want and I petulantly sprint toward that nothing."

She turned toward me then. For once, I didn't want to look back. I kept my gaze fixed on my feet and tried to forget I existed. Her eyes burned holes in my side, but I wasn't there, not really. I closed my eyes and allowed my universe to narrow around me. I tried to narrow my universe to nothing at all, but as hard as tried, I could hear her breath beside me. I felt the sand beneath me and heard the waves in front of me. I realized, only then, that the rain had stopped. 

"That's no way to live, you know? As a shell, a puppet of human life. Surely there is something more for you."

"Maybe so, but I can't imagine it. This is all I know now. Any memories of a real life have drifted away. Sometimes I see photos of myself, but I don't remember them being taken. I don't even recognize the person in them most of the time. Their eyes aren't sunken or red, they seem taller, more full. They are alive, and I am not. This feeling, this nothing, is all I've ever known. So, no, I'm not sure there is much else for me."

"I really wish there was." She slowly fixed her gaze on the floor in front of her, seemingly mimicking my posture. Again the silence between us returned and my eyes promptly shut. I tried and failed to stop my mind from racing. I didn't form coherent thoughts, instead allowing emotions to fill every inch of room in my brain. Vague, overwhelming concepts flashed behind my eyes one at a time. Feelings of failure, of pain, of futility, of sadness. I opened my eyes and looked to her once more. They were all replaced with a cool relief. I took this with me when my vision returned to the ground.

"You know I can't stay." Her inflection rose at the end of the sentence, but she wasn't asking a question. 

"I know."

"I'm starting to wish I'd never come at all."

After a few more moments, she placed her hand on my knee. Her palm was soft, warm. She looked in my eyes and faintly smiled.

"Please be okay without me, okay?"

I nodded, lying. I smiled back at her, this time telling the truth. I was happy to have seen her. 

"Please." The smile faded from her face. With that, she stood and turned away. I heard her footsteps get increasingly distant until, nothing. I kept my eyes fixed in front of me and allowed her to exit my universe. The low hum of static returned. 

The relief she had given me remained, however. I felt okay, but only because I knew what was next. I took another moment to feel the sand before standing. I composed myself and took my first steps forward. For once, I governed my feet. Each step was triumphant and felt more confident than the last. Finally moving toward something real. The waves grew louder until they covered my ankles.

The water line climbed further and further along my body. It engulfed my knees, then my waist, my abdomen, my hands, elbows and shoulders. Each part of my body was slowly washed of its imperfections. I opened my mouth and let the sea fill my mind, cleansing it of all that had once been there. I looked up as my hair reached toward the moon, and bubbles of air flooded to the surface. I watched as the final one made its escape. The humming went away. And then, there was nothing at all.