Chatoyant

To Get To The Other Side

The air was so humid I thought fish could easily swim in it. And I mean big fish. Dog-sharks, at least.
I had the body of a child, but I felt as old as shadows as I sat in the pleasant, constant surroundings of the Forest, drinking in the decay, the self-pity, the all-around stupidity of the world. In the Forest, time was simply a cliché. Relative. I could go back in the past or speed up to the future and I would still feel the same. Utter indifference. I was rotting under a tree, a boy with a rabbit doll and a scrap of filthy paper. That was how Dutiful and Gavin found me. I was just reaching the points where I was sinking under completely, my feet slipping on the metaphorical tightrope into peaceful looking sleep, when Dutiful conveniently emerged from the undergrowth beside me and cut the cords binding my mind to that of the Earth with a pair of sleek gardening shears. I started to feel again. The first feeling was regret, as I watched the plushy and the parchment in my hands dissolve into sunbeam dust and float into the world below. Another thought bubbled in my brain.

I didn’t want to burn.