Into the Unclear

The sun was setting. Wind rippled the grass covering the field that lay just on the other side of a shoddy wire fence and the smell of the meadow filled my nose like a fragrant perfume that stung my parched, cold throat. We lived on the edge of the city, where the pavement became fields and hills in the distance. It felt amazing to run here on the edge of suburbia. I liked the quiet, the loneliness of the freedom I felt in the honey yellow fields and those distant, green hills that framed a darkening sky. Those hills were haloed with the radiance of the setting sun, their silhouettes crowned with a brilliant yellowish-orange as light and fire ebbed away from another warm spring day. It was beautiful.

My sound of my footsteps thundered off the unpaved path, exhaustion ebbing by strength to carry on, the growing ache in my legs, throat and chest dragging me, draining my will and weakening my resolve with every passing second. I had to push on though, I had to keep going just a little further or else I would never improve. The scenery kept me company, urged me forward, its beauty and wonder calming the ache of effort. The road I was on lead a while out of town, in-between the meadows. My booming feet slowed to an ungainly and uneven walk as I was over taken by ache of exhaustion. My breathing was load and unsightly, I was a panting dog, without the charm. I spat, my saliva sticky and bitter, congealing at the back of my throat.

It was the loneliness I craved more than the scenery. I disliked the looks of pity or condescension, the snickers and scoffs at the skinny, unfit stick of a man and his pathetic attempts to free himself of his underwhelming body. It felt amazing to run, it felt freeing, pleasurable and it felt terrible as well, the aches, the weakness and occasional dizziness. My ragged panting had slowed now, my breathes became deeper and smoother. It really was a beautiful evening, the type that mad your face split into a wide silly grin, helpless to the majesty of natural wonder. It was beautiful.

It was getting dark as I began to head back. The sun was nearly completely out of sight under the hills. I jogged, a comfortable, slower paced one this time so I didn't tire out so fast, but slowed down to a walk again when I heard voices from the field. Probably some juveniles, by the sounds of them, trespassing on the fields for some petty perceived thrill. Children had never had any respect for property, probably, I thought, because they had never owned any. Not to mention the shocking way people raised their children these days. Were those voiced coming closer? The light was dim and making out anything definitive was difficult but I thought I saw movement over…

The air around me blurred, strange voices filled it with a language I didn't understand. I needed to escape these terrifying shadows and their twisted language, I had to run, to get away from this living nightmare. I ran, with every ounce of energy I had left, wide eyed and confused. They're people. I couldn't make out their faces, but they were definitely people, running so fast around me my eyes had trouble keeping up. Their voices began rising to an ear splitting pitch, some terrifying crescendo hailing my death. This was how it would end for me, I thought. This was how I die. A hand emerged from the whirlwind of bodies and grabbed me, pulling me along dizzyingly fast. I kept my feet, tripping and stumbling with the speed but still keeping stride. I couldn't fight the grip, it was all I could do to keep myself from falling. I had to keep up. It was the only way out of this. I MUST. The pitch of their voices passed some unfathomable boundary and a feeling like the plug in a bathtub being pulled out overtook me. The whirlwind had a direction now, but my attention was too fixed on the ground beneath my feet to notice the thing pulling me along never mind anything around me.

I was sprinting over logs, tripping over rocks and falling head-first along with what must be dozens of laughing, confusing and indecipherable voices. I stumble over something that passes too fast to actually see. What little rationality there was left in me fumbled around with this fact for a second until I realised the pace had quickened. I was too terrified to look up but there's nothing for it, I couldn't see objects before their already under my feet. This was impossible. No one could move this fast. I managed to peek at the creatures around me, still shocked and confused and terrified but curiosity had found a place somewhere among my baser emotions. What the hell was going on?

Their faces were strange, smooth and beautiful but I couldn't tell which gender they belonged too. Some of them glanced at me and I averted my eyes, staring at the ground. Their song raised pitch for a second, were they laughing? I was startled to realise I couldn't feel my legs anymore, they existed only as a blur beneath me. I could still feel the rest of my body, the muscles in my torso and arms working furiously, but none of the pain that plagued me moments before was present. I was floating through a painless flurry of scenery too fast to look at with strange, androgynous forms singing their strange, lilting songs. It must be songs, their words overlapped one another's and clashed and harmonised. It was oddly beautiful. Their song continued, the smiling, the running and exhilaration. Was I in the presence of angels? It was beautiful.

Their clothing was not natural, not like anything I had seen before. It flowed around them, material that was shifting and undulating and billowing, but not with the wind, with a mind of its own, like some living organism crawling across their skin. Every shape and form and style was present, a cloak, a shirt, a jacket, leotards and baggy trousers, peaks and swirls and every kind of colour. I was enchanted. I was… docile? I was afraid. This was all too much. What were they? What has happened to my legs? The song reached a shattering pitch and suddenly I was no longer running so much as bounding.

My confusion forced my attention to the world around me. In this barrage of strangeness the impact of the giant trees with thick, willowy branches as wide as an elephant was just another mystery in the unfathomable confusion. The creature holding me pulled me along, each bond dragging me up far into the canopy to land on another willowy monster of a branch. It sang loudly and heartily, in a tune that was so entrancing my attention slipped from the impossible speed and fluidity of my own movement. I was no longer tripping and stumbling, I lurch from tree to tee, driven by my own adrenaline and sheer sense of disbelief. It was beautiful.

We leapt from tree to tree, the wind blowing around us, this strange creature and me. Its friends flew alongside us, their whooping, bellowing songs rose above the whipping wind and pierced my ears, the ecstatic rush of words, tumbling through my brain so fast I couldn't pick out the words. I could feel their excitement now though. It was a part of me, for I flew with them too, my hand grasped firmly by my guide. We broke through the canopy, branches carried us to the warmth of a midday sun, bright and yellow above our heads. The canopy extended in every direction, monstrously sized trees cast shadows like mountains, a landscape comprised of branches and leaves. The pitch reached crescendo and this time I saw it, a hole where the air should be. We plunged through and the world was different.

We were high in a rocky mountain range, the morning sun halfway to its zenith. The air was clear, you could see far over the landscape of our perilous path, hoping from dizzying outcrop to vanishing ridge, a great plain covered the land far below us to either side of the mountain range, carrying on forever in a patchwork of browns and yellows and greens. It should have been cold this high up but there was no snow and the air felt thick with a summer heat. There were two suns. It was beautiful.

I was no longer afraid. I leap and run and sang my own song. I was not as graceful, my words not as smooth yet my new friends encourage me with their thrilling, joyous songs and mischievous, encouraging smiles. We passed through another hole and run up fallen pillars and ruined temples in a place long overgrown by time under a sky which was not blue. We danced on the surface of an ocean that must have been water, only water would never support a man's weight, never mind bend like a trampoline underfoot. We sprinted through caves lit by glowing plants, our shadows rippling along the walls, our echoes joined in on the wondrous chorus. My guide ran beside me, my hand held firmly in its. Together we bounded, reckless and heedless, through darkness and light, forest and plain. Our voices mingled and diverged. We leapt through the hole.

We were running through a meadow at the dead of night, but our feet knew the way. I sing my loudest by the rest grow quieter, something was about to happen. We bounded over a fence, their voices hushed but fast, the air grew tense and I stopped my singing. For the first time in what seemed like an age, I was afraid of what might come next and suddenly I was spinning, spinning amongst a thousand voices at their peak, cheering to the sky for the friend they had made in their odd, incomprehensible language. I was a centre of joy, a sense of belonging and completeness pervaded my mind. Together, we were bright, we were alive and bright, filled with the joy and exhilaration of life. I was the rising sun in all its glory and splendour. The voices rose to an impossible pitch and were gone. I was alone in a haze of rapturous joy suddenly pierced by silence.

Still spinning, I fell to the floor, absolutely exhausted. My mind was fuddled, my limbs were jelly. My breath came out in ragged gasps. It took a long time to compose myself before I could think a clear though again. For a long time I lay in the darkness, the sounds of dozens of light spinning voices echoing in my head, until eventually they faded too. My strength returning, I slowly sat up, muscles slightly stiffened from exertion. I became aware of the meadows smell and the lights of the city not so far off. The stares and moon were bright in the night sky. If I had been in a worse mood I might have said they looked lonely, but all I could really think was how it was beautiful.