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A hike up the trails

Why wouldn't you leave me alone?", I was about to burst into tears. My arms were caught in the choke-hold the black apparition-y thing had me in. They felt flail now. I was so tired. I didn’t want to fight anymore.

No matter what I did, where I went I could feel a presence. A presence so subtle to evade everyone's eyes yet solid enough to make me turbulent. I had tried to rid it by jumping the lights, standing in the sun for hours. So, I knew it didn't want to kill me. Otherwise my methods would have kept its hands clean. I needed to get away to save my remains. I was not sure I was whole. A substance anymore.

I tried going near the waters. But it didn't drown. Maybe I hike up to where oxygen dies. Otherwise, the only choice I had was to jump off the cliff. Who has ever caught up with the gravity? It wouldn’t. Nobody does. So, I tried the lesser of the both choices.

The woods were calming my nerves. Fresh air had ruffled my hair and patted my cheeks after so long. "Oh so lone and peaceful", my sense organs were exhilarated. The sun was out yet not prickly. I understood why they would like it sunny on the beach. Only one thing black was following me now. My own shadow. Stunted, timid, and punctured. I certainly looked better than that. A happy, not-forced smile involuntarily fluttered across my face.

I kicked back my walking stick to infuse more energy to hit the trails again. I was happy indeed. I got down, got up, climbed few rocks, drank from the streams under the shoddy bridge. The bridge only looked shoddy. That cranky, shivering bridge could hold ten horses running across on it at one time, a passerby explained when he saw a streak of scare on my face. But, who would find ten horses in those mountains, so how did he know? I started thinking. Suddenly, a branch almost hit me in the face. It had curved outwards and then inwards to form the trunk of the elephant. A bunch of clustered branches merged and demerged to form the face and the sharp tusk to closely resemble one of the green jade elephants I had in my drawing-room.

“Ho… the elephants are not green… Ha…ha… They are purple, see!”, I remembered the giggle of my neighbour’s kid who had never seen an actual elephant and was pretty content with her purple elephant named Jumbo.

Few more thoughts came clouding in. The stream flowing downstream reminded how scared I was when I was under a waterfall last time. And, this time I thanked myself for not having to experience it. The ant-hills just beside the boulder I was leaning against started tunneling me through those childhood antics where the silly childish pranks must have pissed off thousands of those ants. How did I grow so fast? Those memories were so clear in my minds. And some more thoughts came in till it became an outpour.

And it happened again. I could feel it taking control of my front sight first. The green in front, the thousands of feet depth just below my feet, the grey of those massive stones fixed on the right of the minor foot-trail I was carrying on in; they were blotting with the black marker slowly though continuously. I felt the familiarity in the way it changed the air around me. The smell turned smoky because I was feeling suffocated. The taste in my mouth turned bitter-sour. I could move but suddenly I couldn’t. “Why wouldn’t you leave me?”, I barely screeched. I knew all my efforts were fruitless. I lapped the air or till I could I did. I succumbed. Finally.

I was enveloped by black from all sides. Still. Not moving but I was embalmed in a layer of black. My breath was shallow. All my fights against claustrophobia had been over and my body acclimated to short laps of breaths. But, one thing I knew this was not going to leave me. I may have hit the eye, but any moment now the hurricane could just sweep me up!
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YeahWrite prompt: Write a poem set on a hiking trail or write a chant (or combine the two).

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  1. NateJuly 19, 2018 at 11:05 PM

    The language you chose added to the chaotic and claustrophobic tone of the story. I liked all of the vivid sense details.

    ReplyDelete

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