Hope you all enjoy this, as much as I am writing it. I used to hate writing in the first person, but maybe I'm changing my mind.
Foot Falls
I lay there for sometime on this layer of green stalks. What is time? I don’t know what time is, yet I do. The light in the sky was in one place before, now it’s in another. It’s hard to tell, it’s so bright that my vision refuses to look at it, but I know it has moved. I breathed for some time, and lay, and look up at the sky or rolled my head from side to side beholding these colors and things. Finally, I sat up.
There was a strange pulling, tensing in my stomach above my legs. It felt as if something beneath was moving, like arms inside of me helping my body to bend into this new position. My back,—another place I had discovered that I could not see—is suddenly cooled. I had not thought of it, because as I lay upon the green the sensation was ever the same. This vessel that I lived in, this vessel that I am, it is always reaching out to know this world that I have found myself in. Things I cannot see, I hear, things I cannot hear, I feel.
I watch my hand as it moves towards my head. I desired to know this thing that is on my back that I could not see, my hand obeys the subtlety of my thoughts. There is pressure on my head, and hair beneath the fingers of my hand. It is long and falls in waves and curls down my back. There is more, shorter and stiffer on my face too, but only on parts.
All these things are new to me, and yet familiar. I did not know much, or rather there was much that I knew I did not know. Why is there always darkness below my hand, no matter which way I turn it? Why is my back cool, but my front warm? Why does it take the pulling of my inner arms to move my body up, but without my want it would come back down?
Yet, I know names to many things that I see and do. I am glad for this. I don’t know how I could think if I did not have names for what I do and know. As I learn each new thing, I find I want to know more. I want to move, not just my arms or my body, but from this place. I know I can, though I never have. As I want to move, I also want to stay. There is a feeling in me, my mind—no my heart calls it peace. Yet the desire to move is stronger.
Shifting my bond to this thing below, I turn my body over. My front now rests upon the grass. I feel each stalk anew against my flesh. It tickles. It is a new thing. I want to linger, but now that I have determined to move I cannot stay. I push down with my arms and rest now on my knees. I stretch one arm out, then a knee. The other two follow likewise.
The fist inside my chest is squeezing and releasing fast. From my stomach, is a kind of numbness and tingling. Leaving all I had yet known, seems related somehow. It is like a trembling in me, but I love it. I want more of it. I repeat, and I am further now, but my vision is hindered by a green thing. It interests me that I do not know its name. I want to call it something…bush. It will be a bush.
Though I name this thing, and it pulls my mind to itself, still I choose to move. But this method feels, like I do not know it. I came from where I was, to where I am, but I believe there is another way I should know. My arms are strong, and my knees are firm, but my legs and feet…I sense they were not meant to be dragged. I want to know their use.
I adjust my legs for a moment. Then I put the flat part on the back of the foot to the ground. The foot, pivots…I can feel small arms inside it tensing. An image flashes, but I see what I see at the same time. I see both at once. One though, is in my head I think. It’s telling me how this works.
My other foot joins the first, my inner fist and stomach react again, then I put my hands beside me and push down. My legs push too. The world sinks down as I stand up. The gentle breeze washes over me again. I feel it now everywhere passing over my flesh, around my arms and between my legs. My skin feels alive with millions of little arms. Tiny bumps rise to the surface. I step out.
Slowly, one in front of the other. I am unsteady, I feel the pull of below. Yet, with each one after my control increases. My eyes behold knew things. Some like bushes, but taller and barren below. The green stalks gives way to veins of brown turf, that sticks with one step and falls away with the next. I want to know all this too, but I keep stepping. Walking. I want to know what I see, but I want even more to know what I don’t see.
My steps are falling faster. Yet I remain sure. The pounding in my chest, is faster now. I feel new strength flowing through me. Faster still. I pick my foot up now before the other has landed. There is no wind here, but I make my own. Things pass by me quicker and quicker. Still I do not slow. My fist, my heart, it pounds harder now. But this too I love. How fast can I go? Where is the end of these things? Of the world? Can I find it?
I make wind.
Subsequent chapters will be "Adam, *" just so those who are enjoying this don't look for Adam, Breathe in 2 =)
My for fun story:
Adam, Breathe In
My for critique story:
The First Day of Regret/Warring Freedoms Ch 1
