Wintersweet

1

I woke up underneath a palm tree. For a moment, this seemed perfectly ordinary to me.

I was lying down on fine white sand. Waves lapped at the shore twenty feet away, and there was a salty grit to the air. The beach seemed to stretch endlessly in both directions, and the only thing that seemed odd to me was the fact that the palm tree I was lying underneath seemed to be the only tree on the entire beach.

In fact, glancing behind me, I realized it was the only structure anywhere. The sand stretched not only to the left and the right, but behind me, seemingly infinitely. That seemed odd. This beach was the nicest beach I'd ever seen, and yet there was no road, no path, no beach houses. Not even grass. Just . . . sand.

The sun was a little ways above the horizon, with a few hours to go until sunset, but it was partially obscured behind clouds. Most of the sky was overcast, and colored in mottled greens, grays, and blues. It was still just light enough to see, and just warm enough as not to be uncomfortable. The entire scene was so serene that I might have gone right back to sleep, if I hadn't been feeling perfectly well rested. Instead, I stood up.

A part of me realized that this perfect moment wouldn't last. The sun would set and the air would be cold, the moon and stars would be hidden away behind the clouds and the night would be pitch-black, and some of the clouds were so dark that they might start a storm from which I had no cover. I knew that, in my mind, but my heart refused to acknowledge it. I had no worries, no cares at all. I was completely calm, and the part of me that was capable of logical thought also knew that this was very uncommon. The serene calm of the rest of my mind pushed the logical thoughts away.

I brushed sand off of my legs and strolled down toward the water. The water was a perfect temperature, cool but not cold, and I was content to stand there ankle-deep in the water for a moment. I was barefoot, I realized, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. The observation vanished the moment I stopped paying attention to it.

You need a jacket! Cold! Mosquitos! warned the back of my mind. I ignored it. There were no mosquitos on this beach, I realized, no seagulls or pigeons or any animals at all. Though the water was greenish and I couldn't see through it perfectly, I saw no signs of seaweed or coral or fish. There was nothing living on this beach, nothing besides myself.

The thought still failed to disturb me.

I did not grow tired of standing in the water. I simply came to the conclusion that I had spent exactly the right amount of time standing there. Nothing compelled me to swim, especially since I was wearing the only clothes I seemed to have, so I turned back from the ocean and began back toward the lone palm tree. Particles of sand stuck to my wet feet as I walked, which ordinarily would have irritated me, but I felt no concern. As I reached the tree, I realized my feet were already dry. This seemed normal, although I knew it shouldn't. I brushed them off and sat under the tree again.

For the first time I began to wonder how I got here. I knew I had never been here before, and I knew that when I had gone to sleep, I had been . . . somewhere else, at least. I had no memory of anywhere but this place, and yet I knew with absolute certainty that I had been somewhere else for my entire life up to this point. The absence of my memory and the oddities of this place still refused to rankle me. I soon forgot that I had forgotten.

I sat under the tree for what seemed a very long time, though based on the sun it could not have been more than a few minutes. I began to feel . . . not tired, exactly, but I had the idea that I wanted to close my eyes and lie down under the palm tree again. So I did.

Eventually I would fall asleep, I knew. And once I did I would wake up back where I came from. The conclusion seemed logical, though I wasn't sure exactly where it came from. I would fall asleep, forget this place, and wake up somewhere else, ready to resume my old life, whatever that was. I stretched and curled up under the tree, yawning. Time to go back.

NO!

A single pang of pure, unadulterated fear struck through into the calm serenity of my mind, and shattered it. It immediately faded away, but it was enough for me to sit bolt upright, eyes wide open, lips parted in what might have been a scream of terror, if I could remember the feeling that had caused me to want to scream.

I wasn't so sure I wanted to sleep anymore. Uncertainty. That, too, was new.

The calm soon settled back over me, but I stood up shakily. I didn't feel afraid anymore, but I remembered feeling afraid, if distantly. I didn't want to feel that again. I didn't want to feel anything but the content that I felt, here at the beach. If I slept, I would feel the fear again.

Part of me knew that I lacked the strength to feel an emotion again, but the mere thought of the possibility was enough to get me to stagger away from the palm tree. I wasn't supposed to stay here. I knew that, the same way I knew that sleeping under the tree would send me back to where I came from. But the terror I had felt for a brief moment was enough to cause me to feel a new emotion.

Determination.

Whatever made that fear manifest, I wanted no part of it. I wasn't supposed to stay here, true. But who's going to enforce that, really? I thought. No one's here. I can do what I want. And I'm not going back to that fear again.

I didn't bother continuing to debate with myself. I had made a decision. The decision was not going to change, no matter how wrong it felt. So I strode resolutely along the water, down the sand that went forever.