Touch of doubt

A trip through the fields of pain

It is warm and a beam of light is touching my closed eyes. I open them just to see the light came from between the emerald like leaves of a tree. All around me is just a plain field. Without margin. Eternal. Peaceful. It is like nothing I have ever seen before.

"Where am I ?", I ask myself.

I get up and start walking around aimlessly just like a little child who, for the first time in his life, explores things which were beyond his powers just moments ago. I explore walking, this new ability which I was unaware of right until now. I look back. My tree just disappeared leaving me completely alone. If there is something you should be afraid of in your life this is being alone. Alone with your thoughts. We often hear that we are our worst enemy. Make no mistake, we are our worst nightmare. We are being eaten from inside by ourselves and the worst thing is that we do not want to acknowledge that. We are blind. We want to be blind. We like it that way, it is easier to push everyone away thinking you are the only one who you're going to need.

"What is this? Where am I? Answer me! Somebody!". I scream from the top of my lungs, but there is no one to reply.

It must have been a few hours since I woke up under the tree that vanished just moments before I began to explore the surroundings. Something is wrong however.The sky looks the same, no cloud has moved and the sun seems to be in the exact same position as hours ago.

"Maybe they are not hours after all ! Maybe it has been only minutes. I start loosing my mind! What is the last thing you know? I don't know, I can't remember. Well done, you are talking to yourself now."

I panic.

"What is going to happen with me? I will die of hunger. No! Thirst will kill me first. HELP!", I shout.

I only know who I am, but besides that everything seems to be unclear. I can't recall any face which I am supposed to know.

"But who am I? That's easy I am..." No name comes into mind. I can't remember anything so there is really just one more question to ask. "Do I exist anymore?"

When you think about everything you have done in your life, does it make sense? Did it make any difference? You might as well ignore the things you "have to do". You can do only what you want. No boundaries. Now I come to realize that I can do whatever I want. I am alone. There is a problem though; here you have no choice. There is nothing to do and I just feel like days, maybe weeks have passed since I've been here. How come I am still alive. Something isn't right here. I stand up and start running in a random direction. It is the same field that has been driving me crazy since I firs wake up in here.

"Where am I?", I asked. Of course I was not waiting for an answer, but this time it happened.

"You are inside. ", said a voice coming from nowhere. I had a shock. After all that time, I finally hear a human voice which isn't mine. I always believed that everything would be better if I go somewhere in a remote place and just live here on my own without any other human being, but now I feel so relieved from my madness, I feel like I finally can think straight again. I fall on the ground, crying, crouched. I beg the voice to say something again but it doesn't respond to my cry.

Huge, dark clouds appear on the sky and they seem to come from everywhere. I turn around just to see that another tree just appeared behind me like it was there since the beginning of time, it was just me who had no eyes to witness its existence. I can see now that it is a willow. Just like Atlas it seems to carry the world in its back, imprisoned for life in the same position, unable to move, unable to comprehend that its salvation cannot come from the outside. You have to let go in of the things that keep you in place.

The earth starts shaking and in just a fraction of a second everything is gone. I am falling and falling, falling. I can see pieces of ground flying around me, falling in the same hole which seems to never end. Just like the field, the falling is eternal, calm, maddening. Everything goes down except the huge willow that remains, just like Atlas, in the same spot forever. It becomes smaller and smaller until it is impossible to distinguish from the darkness that surrounds me now. Everything is now forgotten. Everything is just a memory. Like the memories of people you thought you care about. You said you will keep them in your memory forever, but years pass and time with its cruel rag wipes everyone off your mind. One by one. First you stop remembering your school colleagues or your teachers, than you find out you can't remember some of your relatives you haven't seen since your mother's birthday a lot of years ago. You will be told later that your aunt died and you barely even know her name anymore, you are forced to go to some meeting where all people are crying just because they have to do it. Most of them are just like you, others didn't even knew her at all, but they are still crying. "How can you be so insensible?", you hear your father saying. "A person just died. Don't you care?". You shake your head and the next thing you know your father slaps you for not showing any respect when you in fact just had the courage to say what others are thinking. Then you forget your first love, her face is blurred and her name is incomplete. Your family is eaten slowly by the same monster that ate all other people. Loneliness is killing you without you knowing, thinking that this is the best way. "I need no one. I am doing fine by myself", you said to yourself so many times in front of the mirror, contemplating whether is it worth living anymore or no. Is there even a difference between your aunt and the tree somewhere above you?

A loud noise broke the silence my thoughts created. The falling stops, but oddly enough I feel no pain. Nothing is eternal. The field, the hole, the happiness, the pain. Nothing lasts forever. Even God in all of his glory has no power over a mind which knows no gods. Here is cold and the hunger and thirst I didn't feel earlier come to me and make me feel worse than ever before. I crawl to the ground as I drag my nails across my face. My nails suddenly grew painfully big and my wounded face starts bleeding. I can only feel the little drops falling on my naked body. When did I get naked? From the cold darkness come whispers I can't understand, crashing one in another, entering my ears and scratching my brain. The voices grow stronger and louder into an incomprehensible clamor.

Thousands of little hands appear out of nowhere and start to sting me with long, sharped needles. I try to attack them with my claws, but I was paralyzed; forced to feel those pointed needles tearing my flesh, but denying me death. Every time a little hand stung me I could feel myself closer and closer to the edge of insanity. I could see the hands stabbing me, but the pain was lower and lower as I become less and less aware of myself. After hours or maybe days or months of torture everything disappeared. Am I finally entirely crazy? I feel no pain, nor do I feel lonely anymore. I just exist.

  "Pain is eternal!", shouted a voice and the whole pitch black surroundings shattered revealing a room full of mirrors and above all was a chandelier made out of human bones and skulls, with a little, almost shy, candle in every skull. After all the time spent in the darkness my eyes hurt from the light that comes from every mirror. My eyes slowly start getting used to the light and I am now able to distinguish thousands of hideous creatures that resemble a skeleton, but with skin. The all have sharp, long nails which I recognized instantly as the needles used to torture me. I approach a mirror and I see the ugly monstrosity looking deep into my eyes. It is hunched and keeps its knees bent. It has pale skin and there are wounds on every inch of its body. The eyes... The eyes are the most humane things I have seen in a long time.

The light goes off and I can hear someone trying to light a match. A little boy appears in the dim light and takes me by the hand. He remembers of me when I was a child. We made a few steps towards one of the mirrors. We stop and the boy looks at right in my eyes.

"You think it's hard to live? You just want to die right now? I'm telling you it's even harder to be dead." He opens hidden door behind the mirror and says:

"Come! I'll show you the way out."

/*I am sorry for any mistake. Please feel free to point out anything wrong. */