You

I can see and hear the rain, but I don’t feel it. I feel nothing, outside and in. Sticking my hand out I see the droplets hit me, but they bounce off as if the mere presence of my skin repulses them. I can hear everything; my ears homing in on the tiny little splashes colliding with my body, but they come with none of the wetness they should.

How odd.

Looking down I see the torn clothes on me, covered in dirt, wet from the rain but still I don’t feel any of it.

My shoes are missing, where are my shoes? My toes covered in what should be wet goopy mud. Wiggling them I realize I don’t feel that either.

Nothing.

I hear the wind, the trees dancing with it. Swaying to the rhythm it decides. My hair unmoving and no coldness, no prickling of my skin. I don’t feel the breeze.

The damp musty earthy smell of the rain and forest hits my nose, enveloping me. I close my eyes, hoping when I open them this will make sense. Why does none of this make sense?

What happened to me?

Why am I here?

Thunder booms and crackles around me, it’s so loud my eyes fly open, I jump and scream. Nothing comes out of my mouth.

What?

I try to scream again. Mouth wide, deep breath in. Silence.

I throw my hands to the middle of my chest. I finally feel something, I’m scared but I feel nothing that should go along with that.

Why isn’t my heart pounding? Why am I not breathing fast?

I realize now I don’t have to breathe at all. I can go through the motions, but they don’t seem to be doing anything.

No heartbeat.

No breathing.

I need to do those things to live. I know as I think it, I’m not alive. I can’t be, there’s no way.

The trees spin around me, their swaying and the crackling consuming everything. I’m not sure I can fall but I hate the spinning so I sit and close my eyes as tight as I can. I imagine the force of it crushing my eyes entirely, but I can’t feel it.

I feel nothing but the dread of the unknown now.

Opening my eyes I’m relieved to see the trees have stopped their swirling dance around me. Taking in my surroundings more clearly now. I know this place. I know these trees; I know this forest very well.

A sense of belonging washes over me with the plop, plop, plopping of the rain bouncing off my skin. It’s constant. I would say it’s even calming aside from the fact that it isn’t right. It should be dampening my skin but still, nothing.

I am here but I’m not.

Standing to get my bearings I decide to walk through the trees, a path I’ve walked many times. I keep walking. I don’t know how long I’ve been doing it. I have no sense of time. It feels like it has been seconds and days all at once. I haven’t seen any obvious time of day changes, and the storm is still happening, so I assume it hasn’t been very long. Hours at most.

I’m here now. My tree. My place. Our place.

Eyeing the ancient giant tree in front of me I am filled with memories. I would sit here. I would write, read, think. It was my spot. My place, my happy place. The place I went to be me, to breathe, to get away. To feel like I belonged somewhere. It always made me feel better. I spent so much time under its loving branches, at the base of its strong broad trunk. In a way it raised me and became home.

When I met you, I brought you here once I fell for you. I shared my sacred space. I thought I could. I thought I could give you this part of me to share. I never thought I’d share it with someone, it was mine, but I loved you. I wanted you to feel it’s comfort the way I did. This special home of mine.

We carved our initials into the rough bark. It was hard, you had to do most of it. I thought that it would forever change this place of mine. Now ours. I look at it now and I don’t feel that change. It’s still mine. It is somehow now more mine. Forever mine.

I run my hand along the bark, I feel it’s roughness. I feel.

I push my hand in hard, scratching my skin as rough as I can while slowly walking around the trunk. It must be hard enough to break the skin; it feels like it.

I make it almost all the way around and then I see it. My shoe. Just one at the base of the tree, sitting against it so I couldn’t have seen it without walking around. It is unmistakably mine. The black canvas, white laces, and the small white heart I painted on the side while bored one day at home stuck inside sick with the flu. It was right after I met you.

The mud hasn’t set on my shoe, the rain hasn’t let it. I pick up my shoe, but I can’t feel it in my hand. I try to put it on, but it won’t slide. My body rejecting it like the same sides of a magnet. It shoots out of my hand and lands exactly where I found it, like I never laid a hand on it.

Where is the other one?

I look around the rest of the tree, my hand coming to something that feels different. I look, knowing what I will find. Our initials, carved deeply into the trunk, as deep as you could get them.

I trace the carving with my finger, feeling every little nook and rough edge.

What happened?

What am I doing out here?

I drop my hand from the tree, allowing it to fall to my side. I can’t step anymore; something is in the way, but I can’t feel what. My other shoe?

Lightening strikes, thunder clapping at a crescendo. The noise, the flashing. It is everywhere. It is everything.

Its me.

I hear you coming, I know it’s you. I can sense you; I have always been able to.

I knew from the moment I met you that you would change my life forever, I wanted you to. I couldn’t help the connection to you, it was instant. I never stood a chance. I wanted to let you in, I wanted to be with you. I wanted you.

You wanted me too. It surprised me.

Now you’re here. I see you. I see you coming towards me, towards our tree. No, my tree.

I want to protect you from what you’re about to see. From the loss of me.

You walk right up to me, so close now I should be able to feel your breath on my face, but I can’t. I try to warn you, but the words don’t make a sound. I reach my hand out to your face, but you don’t feel it.

I’m here.

I’m right here.

You’re looking through me, and I follow your gaze. You’re looking at the other me, the dead me, but I’m right in front of you. I don’t want you to see me like that. I don’t want you to hurt.

There’s nothing I can do though; you can’t hear or feel me.

I step over my body and sit beside it, looking at me, expecting to know what is happening, to remember. I don’t. I don’t remember anything about how I got here or what happened.

I comb over myself more thoroughly, looking for anything that will help. I see my blood; I see the open wounds. I see the deep red soaking into the earth below, the tree behind. I see…

I see the knife.

A knife I remember staring at. The knife that carved our tree. My tree.

I only now notice you’ve been dragging something behind you, you rest it against the bark gingerly. Like it might break.

You bend down, and look me over, settling on my eyes. They’re open. I see no expression on your face. I can’t read you.

A beat passes and you reach for the knife beside me, picking it up and bringing it to a nearby tree with a hole. I often see squirrels running around. It must be one of their homes and I worry for them when I watch you shove the knife in there, but it’s gone, and I can’t do anything about it.

I focus on your face while you bury my body as best you can beside my tree. I know it was hard to do in the rain, I see the sweat and the look of frustration plastering your face. I hear your rough heavy breathing, the grunting. You fill my ears.

The rain pouring over us, you feeling every last drop and me feeling nothing. I didn’t move, didn’t blink. I couldn’t keep my eyes off you. It’s not the first time I’ve found myself awestruck in your presence, unable to avert my gaze. This time it’s different though and I don’t understand any of it.

I don’t know how long it takes but it must have been a long time. By the time you’re finished with my body, by the time I’m covered by the wet earth the storm has stopped.

I feel nothing again.

I watch you walk away. Not a word said, no explanation. No apology. No remorse.

I sit for long time staring at the mound where my body was stashed away. I spend even longer staring at our initials. The gouged wood forever changed.

I can’t stand it anymore.

I run over to the tree and reach into the hole grasping until I have managed to pull the knife out. I can’t feel it, so it takes a few attempts. I need to get rid of the initials. I need to fix my tree.

I try with all my might, with everything in me but I simply can’t connect the knife to the tree. I can’t make them interact. I scream my soundless scream, and the knife flies out of my hand, back into the hole like I’d never touched it.

I sit back down and close my eyes. I hear everything.

The birds chirping, the bugs moving and buzzing, leaves rustling, the light breeze that’s now flowing. I notice the change in light through my closed eyes. The sun must be up, the clouds out of its way.

The forest is back to moving, to living, being.

I lay my head against my tree. I feel its rough bark scratching through my matted hair on my scalp. It’s the only thing I can feel.

I am here but I’m not.