It all started when I jumped from the train right before it was about to cross a bridge. I can not explain why I felt like I needed to jump, it was just an instinct. Luckily that instinct had sense enough to make me jump before the train went over the bridge that crossed the high canyon which had at its bottom a small quiet river. I wondered why I felt so strongly to exit the train on this side of the bridge and not the other. Lastly, I would like to comment that I was fortunate that the train slowed down from its usual cruising speed so that it could enter the upcoming rural town.
In any manner, here I was standing beside the gravel lined rail tracks. Where I was, I knew not. It was early in the morning and only the light of the moon illuminated the forest that these tracks cut through. I had fled from the city and all of its confusion and materialism. The train yard where they loaded lumber for transportation was not far from my apartment which is located in the outskirts of the city. I decided to just hop aboard one of the open rail cars and let the train take me where ever it went. I stayed in that rail car for hours and had even fallen asleep not long after the sun set. I had no idea where the train was headed or how far I had come.
I was now free from everything. There was nothing to tie me down anymore. This place was peaceful, only the sounds of night insects entered my ears. No longer would I have to wake up early in the morning to sit my ass in front of a computer and waste away my day. At my job I never really learned anything new, I just kept using using the same old techniques that were perfected in the seventies. The city made me angrier day after day. The smell of polluting automobiles, the utter stupidity of people I encountered all had a negative impact on my feelings for my former home. Never again did I want to go back, but where I could go from here I did not know.
I decided to wander around since I no longer cared about things such as death and injury. If I slipped and busted my head on a rock thereby paralyzing my body I would actually enjoy it. It would be great to enjoy such an experience, to feel the pain of cold as my body experiences hypothermia. Oh what a feeling it would be to watch animals gather nearby awaiting my death. But it was summer so I did not have to worry about freezing. Indeed, it was very warm here. The warmth made me feel like I was being cradled in the arms of a loving mother. The warmth I felt was far beyond a physical sensation. I had never felt this way in the city, only negative energy hit me there.
I crossed the rail tracks and walked straight ahead into the unknown. Even though I was now in a dark wooded area the light from an almost full moon showed me all that I needed to see. The foliage here was not dense and it seemed like these trees had a way of keeping competitive weeds and other undesirable plants from growing around them. The ground around the trees showed signs of plant life here and there but nothing like what should exist due to overwhelming amount of sunlight that must hit the forest floor since there are no overbearing trees to block the sun’s shine. These trees felt like they were more than just ordinary trees. I did not know what type they were, their foliage was unlike anything I recognized. They were probably a common tree but my ignorance in the face of horticulture kept me from placing a name to them.
After afew minutes of walking, I could no longer see the rail tracks from where I had come. The rail tracks were out of sight because they lay at the apex of the hill I now traversed. Every now and then as I walked down the hill I would look back at where the tracks sat unseen. Their location increasingly became more distant and higher. They were the last reminder of what I had come from. Looking forward in both direction and in my actions, I decided to go to the river which lay under the bridge, maybe I could drown myself and experience the effects of water entering my lungs and slowly depriving my brain of oxygen. I had nothing else to do, I did not know how to live of the land or how to get to any sort of "civilization." Why was I out here? What had possessed me? Right now it seems that the only thing I can do is die.
As I walked down the slope I thought of the various ways I could die. I thought about being mauled by grizzly bears. I imagined the feeling of their teeth biting into my body. I wondered how being thrown up against a tree by their awesome strength would feel. Would I bleed to death first from all the internal injury or would I suffer sufficient brain injury and cause it to stop wanting to work. Another fantasy of mine was to go back to the bridge, walk to the middle and then dive off into the canyon. I imagined my body hitting the ground beside the river and feeling for a microsecond my bones pushed into my internal organs as a result of the impact. But I would not go back to the bridge for some force beckoned me to the river below.
I have no idea how long it took me to reach the river. It could have been an hour, maybe less, maybe more. There was no sense of time here, that measurement seemed not to exist. Only the quiet of night existed here, the coming of morning seemed far away. I was content in my knowledge that I was probably the only human being here. I was probably the only human awake for miles and miles around. The walk to the bottom had effortless, it felt like I was walking on pockets of air the whole way down.
The river was not very full. Only a thin strip of movement existed between the two static, yellow river beds. The yellow sand on either side of the river showed no sign of foliage and was moist. A mighty river had roared through here at one time, but not tonight. Despite its moisture the bank was firm and took all of my weight without leaving more than a slight footprint. I bent over and picked up some sand which felt dry as I poured it from one hand onto the palm of the other. But when the sand hit the bank again it regained its moisture. I could almost see as if from a third person perspective the twinkle in my eye that occurred from this simple observation.
I walked to the edge of the water and looked into its mystery. It was clear and I could see that the bottom was lined with rocks half buried in the sand. It seemed that they were at once completely covered by sand but the current had exposed them. I placed my hand into the river and felt a gentle tug, like that of a friendly nudge. The water was just a little bit cooler than the surrounding air. It cooled my hand as I let it move around in the clear wonder. But the cooling was not a depleting, it seemed only cool enough to satisfy my slight hotness.
I decided that this was the time to enter the water, to feel its love as it entered my lungs. I unclothed myself and threw my jeans, t-shirt and sports shoes into a pile away from the river’s edge. I stood there, nude, and saw a slight shadow cast by the moonlight of my body upon the river. Slowly, I entered the water, wading into deeper and deeper. I felt both cooled and warmed at once by the water. I was firmly planted, the current was not strong enough to even move me even an inch. As I reached the middle of the river I found that the water only reached slightly below my shoulders. This gave me sufficient room to drown but was not the overwhelming depth I had been hoping for.
I was about to go under and experience the unknown when I heard a small splash of water, hardly even noticeable. I turned in the direction upstream and saw a beautiful brown haired woman swimming towards me. Like me, she was also nude. I was astonished by her beauty and could swear that I saw a faint glow around her head. I wondered how I had not noticed her before now. The river was rather straight at this part, and it would have been hard to not see another figure standing out against the yellow banks. This question did not bother me at all. I did no care how she had gotten here. I still felt peaceful.
When she arrived she did not say anything. She stopped about a foot from me and looked into my eyes with an intensity that made my inner self churn. She smiled as I looked back into her eyes. I could sense an overwhelming radiance coming from her. Then she took both my hands and pulled me towards her. She embraced me and I felt the warmth of her body. I felt every curve of her body. That which had been so sexual to me previously now felt calming and reassuring. I can not explain why her body made me feel this way.
As she embraced me I noticed that I was melting away. Our bodies were no longer touching but rather were becoming one. The process happened slowly as she pressed into me. After awhile there was no sense of pressure on the front of my body, all I could feel was her arms around by back and mine around her’s. We had one skin now. Soon there was only one torso and then our legs became one. We placed our hands against each other’s hands and pressed. Soon there were only two arms. And then as we kept starting into each other’s eyes we pressed out foreheads together. Soon there was only one head. Soon there was only one us.
We climbed out of the river and stood upon the banks. I was fully aware of myself. I was also aware of her, she was there too in my mind. I could feel everything from the new body as if it were my own. Everything the body did was something I wanted to happen. I was in complete control yet it seemed that so was she. Yet, there was no difference in our will. Our desires and needs were one. We acted as one but existed as two. Our new body was feminine, an utter triumph in womanly beauty. The curves I looked down upon were so alluring that it filled my heart with desire. We looked at the moon, it was no longer just a little, it was now a perfect circle in the sky. Directly over us it shined warmth.
As we stared at the only celestial body that provided warmth and allowed us to look directly at it, I felt our body melt away. We sank into the sand, but not as if we were being buried. We lost corporal being slowly as our body melted into the moist banks. I caught a brief last glimpse of the moon as our head melted away completing the merging. Then I felt like I was somewhere else. Even though there was no sense of vision I felt like I was upon one of the hills that lead to the river. I was under the ground in an open spot and knew that the ground was above me. Then I moved beyond the ground and climbed out into the air once again. It was not with a human body that I climbed, but with that of bark and leaves. I grew into a fully grown tree on that hill. Once I had stopped growing my vision was restored. Now I could see everything that was relevant. I could see the tracks, the bridge, the river and all the trees that lined the hills leading to the river. I could see all of these at once. I noticed that the woman was no longer the only one around me, now there were countless others. With this realization I smiled in a way that has no physical significance. And it was this way I stayed till the end of time.
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