| It is with much saddness that I again begin the telling of my story. Much pain comes from the loss associated with it but I feel that I must tell it in order to remain sane. In retrospect, I could and should have done a lot of things to keep safe, but I did not and nothing can be done to change that. You could say this story began late in the month of October, not so long ago, or with the creation of a certain blue device of mine on a date now lost to time. But I say that it started on that day in October, shortly after noon. It was on that day, that I awoke, on my stomach laying on my most comfortable water bed. My room was dim with my blinds closed and it was perfectly quiet with no one but my mother home. I groped in the direction of my nightstand and found my clock. It was 12:01. In the year L211. Slowly I got up, still holding my alarm clock. In my usual daze I walked to my door and opened it. An unusual breeze swept in and chilled me right through my duct-taped pants. As it turned out, my room no longer opened to the living room, but now to a dull green, grassy plain. "How strange, I thought, I wasn't expecting this at all." For a while I sat on a nearby boulder, staring into the dirt in front of me. "This can't be a side-effect since the most mind-altering thing I've ever done is take a couple of condeines two years ago when I was really ill..." I sighed and grumbled and tumbled off the rock. What was I to do? I was someplace full of grass with absolutely NOTHING around me for miles. Almost 200 meters away, the plain I was standing on dropped drastically in a very steep slope and then rolled on into a rather familiar valley. As I turned, I saw that I was actually standing in a rather small grassy strip, that ended right behind me in a stand of trees. With my back to the valley, I could make out rolling hills in the near distance. Quickly I turned and looked back over the valley. There was an immense forest cut with little pockets of grass here and there. The wood extended all the way to the other side of the valley and there I lost sight of it. I could make out dark smudges which I assumed were more trees on the far hills. A glimmer caught my eye and I realized I could see the twinkles of two rivers joining to one. I was home. "ARG!!!!!!!", I cried and shook my head with confusion. "If I'm home where are all the buildings? Is this the past or the distant future or some other dimension?? But that makes no sense!", I cried again, in anguish. I curled up on the ground, ignoring the little voice who warned me of the grubs and cried for a long while. When my bout of extreme self pity had abated, I got up and looked around again. "If it was around noon when I came here, it must have be somewhere after one now." I felt quite curious despite my situation. I had always loved nature and exploring its beauty. I set off down the hill which, was nicely paved in my time, was awfully sandy and treacherous with loose soil everywhere. I slipped down the majority of the hill but finally managed to grasp a tuft of grass and stop. "Great, just what my pants need, more holes." I jumped up and checked the seat of my pants, but they weren't in much worse shape, I hadn't snagged them on anything on my way down. I ran the short distance left to the bottom and suddenly wondered where I would go. I didn't want to think of getting back up that slope because the hill ridge behind me stayed pretty steep for quite a ways. And w hat I would do for shelter since I could forsee no way out of where-(or when-) ever I was. "Who LIVED here, when I am anyways? Indians? The Algonquians or Iroquois? What would they do if they found me..call me a white devil or something? More likely, I'm where no one can reach me." I decided to go in the direction of the park that used to be near my house. I felt that was a wise choice, and turning west, I reasoned that there were no cougars there in my time, so why should there be now? I really only had to take a dozen steps before I was in the wood, and a few dozen more before I could barely make out the pale, cool day behind me. It was a quiet, tranquil wood, but like most woods rather hard to walk through. There were no visible paths and there were innumerable leaves cluttering the ground. Little trees caught around my feet like vines and hindered my walking ability. Since it was late October, many of the trees had already lost most of their leaves, except for the oak trees, of course, who retained their leaves until the new ones budded, and though I could not see the sky behind me, I could definately see it above me. It seemed somewhat colder staring down at me through bare branches. I shivered and looked at my feet, for I had stubbed my toe on a rather large, stubborn root. "Hmm", I thought,"No shoes, just GREAT. Stuck in this PLACE, with who knows what that might eat me, no proper clothes- not even SHOES! GAH!", I screamed once more in frustration. I muttered to myself for a long while, weaving in and out of the trees while the sky above got ever darker. "I'll never find any caves or anything, I never saw any around here, except for those caves full of bats and I don't even know how to get there. Not like I'd want to anyways." I looked up. "Great, now it's almost dark and nowhere to sleep. HMM. I hate this." I sat down in a nook betwwen the roots of a tree, impulsively reached into the pouch of my sweatshirt and pulled out my alarm clock. Surprised I looked at my hand, wondering where my clock had come from and quickly checked the time. "I can barely make it out- is that 16:55 or 17:05? Stupid lack of light- STUPID FRENCH TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" All of a sudden, I fell back and the trees loomed above me. I blinked, they were the same, I rubbed my eyes, they looked the same, I even tried standing up, but the trees had really changed, it was no trick of the light. I looked down to where I had sat just seconds earlier and up at the tree, but the tree was nowhere to be seen. There was a slight rise in the land near the spot the tree had been and a new grove of trees stood all around it. I tried looking for any familiar sights, but nothing was the same. But no- that ridge was still there, and that stream- "But the stream is much deeper than it was a minute ago.." I turned around and did find familiar sights, but not among the trees, it was the land. I walked back aways and found a tumbling of rocks I had passed, but they had centuries worth of growth on them, only little bits of gray and purple peeked through. "What is with me? I must be crazy. How could this whole landscape have changed not even in the blink of an eye? It's nuts! Maybe the stress is getting to me, I should just sleep here among the rocks- well near the rocks at least, so I can feel somewhat reassured. Maybe if I wake up bright and early, everything will be fine. Maybe this was just a cure for me 'cause I'm a late sleeper. Hmm. Think of Gangalf and Frodo- and Legolas- and Treebeard, of course, and all shall be fine." I hugged myself and found a fairly clean patch of ground to sleep on. I lay awake thinking and wondering and worrying for a long time, but I had walked all day with nothing to eat or drink, and finally fell asleep. |
| This is a story in progress so some parts may be not so good for a while and it most certainly won't be complete for a long time, I'm sure. |
| 01JUL03 |
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