drrieux

Once I started walking the brilliance of the stag began to lessen and the sunlight passing through the trees became visible again. I could still see the stag ahead of me, bounding ahead and then stopping to watch me follow. My full concentration was on the animal and I no longer noticed whether I was going up or down hill anymore. As we proceeded through the woods I noticed the trees becoming less dense as I moved forward. Eventually the trees became sparse enough that I could see a clearing on what looked like a peak, and I concluded that I had reached the top of the hill. By the time I had walked into the clearing the stag disappeared somewhere and I was left alone again. It must have been early afternoon because the sun was just past its apex in the sky. Looking back behind me I could no longer see the gas station in the distance, only a vast expanse of land. In the other direction I could see a low valley that led up into a range of mountains not too far away. Was this direction I was supposed to go? Surprisingly, this was the only question that entered my mind at that time. In my moment of doubt, I felt a low rumbling under my feet and I knew that it was a confirmation of my instincts. On the other side of the hill there was a significantly less amount of trees, so I felt more confident traversing downward. At the bottom of the hill, on the valley floor, the grass was long and lush. The ground felt very soft under my feet and I could hear birds cooing from somewhere. The whole atmosphere in this place was very soothing and began to make me feel quite drowsy. A sweetness filled the air and the smell not only excited my nostrils, but my taste buds as well. This place was like nothing I had ever experienced before and my determination began to fade because I didnt want these feelings to fade. My pace began to slow and the path I walked was no longer straight as I was letting my hands pass through the waist high grass. There was a single tree nearby and began to walk toward to take a short break from my journey. Beneath the tree there was a small pond with fish swimming in it. The tree itself was an apple tree and the apples all seemed to be ripe and ready to fall from the sinking branches. I plucked one from the tree, washed it off in the pond, and sat with my back against the tree to eat my snack. Oddly enough I wasnt even hungry, but somehow the fruit from the tree was irresistible and I just had to have a piece of it. However, before I could even take a bite, the drowsiness I had been feeling became much more intense and my eyelids began to feel very heavy. It was a strange sensation because I never fell asleep, but I couldnt move; I had fallen into some kind of trance and was unable to shake myself free. Everything around me became distorted, as if the colors had all been pushed outside of their boundary lines. When the wind blew I could see the changing light patterns on the grass that was swaying. Besides this motion there was another movement, a dark shape moved across my field. I couldnt tell what exactly it was, but it walked upright and was moving toward me. Finally it stopped right in front of me and seemed to be only inches from my face. Lovely day, isnt it, the shape said to me, and I could only moan some sort of affirmation in reply. After my murmur the shape chuckled and said, you do seem to be enjoying it. I would never leave here if I could, but Ive got a job to do. Always work to be done. The shapes voice trailed off and it began to move away out of my line of sight. After my brief encounter with that odd shape I could no longer tell how much time had passed. Time seemed to have no meaning in this place, things just happened as they did. There was never a beginning or end, so to make a temporal reference would be meaningless. One could certainly say that a patch of grass moved in a certain way before moving in another direction, but this observation was pointless because everything was in motion constantly, going back and forth. So perhaps a more accurate way to say it is that time was not meaningless, but just pointless. I would like to say that it was a very good feeling; however, this would be inaccurate. Things were not good or bad, they just were. Somewhere between the two extremes, without either of them actually existing. It was a constant middle state where no decision ever had to be made because none of them mattered. This place was apathy embodied in a physical form.