The Devil All the Time

4

Some days the light outside of the window will pull me into its grasp. I've always been a sucker for nature, the colors looking more vibrant than my brain could bear to comprehend. I had not been five when I started to imagine nature more and more as a part of me. Now, eighteen and fairly lost, nature is the only place that I can properly find any semblance of the self I have forgotten. There is a certain calm I find there, even if only a modicum of the calmness that lulled me to sleep as a child.

Being outside seems to hypnotize me in some way, and if I did believe that drifting from one plane of being into another, that would be the best way to describe it. My mind seems to remove itself from time, reason, memory, and fear. It puts me in a state of ecstasy that is equivalent to an orgasm after winning the lottery. There is no honest way to tell you that I know what I am doing when I am out there. I remember my actions, but my thoughts? My mind is either remarkably blank, or my memory is horrid. All I know is that before I have had the time to try to focus on what emotion has been plaguing me, I've been lying flat on the grass watching the sky for an hour.

Sometimes the unmarked land of the forest sends a jolt through my head. I'll be walking down the road where I live and suddenly I have the urge to jump over the small creek and get lost in there. The small tadpoles sloshing the shallow water and the semi-present woodpeckers do nothing to try to tame that instinct to run away from it all. Sometimes I like to think that if there is a god, it would be Earth itself. It is neither kind nor cruel, it is fickle. We came from it, and now we are breaking it down. What better way is there to describe humans?

I used to fancy living in a city. New York or San Francisco were my two favorites, but then I started listening to the news, and analyzing the nature of us humans. We are perfectly hedonistic beings, take me for example. I dislike being around and working with other people, so I will stay isolated from them. It benefits neither party, but it makes me feel good for a moment. I think that is why that jolt kicks at me so much. I have recently imagined myself standing in the road at that particular creek, looking longingly into the underbrush, the fear of foxes and poison ivy giving me a singular emotion to hold onto. I've imagined running freely, swiftly through a forest (whether it is the particular one by my house or not, I couldn't know), breath ragged, and a wild smile covering my face. Obviously, this will never happen. I dislike running with a passion, and I dislike the thought of losing my breath even more. It is still a nice thing to ponder whilst staring blankly into a pond, like a crazy house escapee, on a cloudy autumn day.