"There!" she exclaims.  "That spot of light.  We walk to it!  Come on!"

To me, it's arbitrary, but to her, it's a promise, a motion.  I swing my arms and sing, "Gung ho!  To the light we go!"  Looking back, she rolls her eyes at me, but I know she senses my sincerity.  

"Quick, it's changing, the color's going!" I say.  So what does she do?  She spreads her arms, and flies me into the color.

photo by Cody Cobb.

He followed her for miles, quietly padding over rocks and pine needles, before she turned.  The tiny smile that broke from her lips was the sunrise for him.  He froze, uncertain and awkward, mid-step.

Carefully, the girl bent down and opened her arms.  He stood still but for breathing.  The sun moved in its path.  Still she knelt, arms shaking now, the smile deepening in her eyes.  His starlight eyes searched hers.  

The sky turned pink and orange behind them.  Her breath misted golden in the dying day, her patient arms unwavering.  

Finally, the sun set blindingly behind the girl and the mountain.  At once, the fox knew.  In her eyes, he saw the need of the cosmos, and he would go with her forever if he could, following the sun.

He took a step toward her and was wrapped in her warm arms.

photo via.

My footsteps keep looking behind me, and I am reluctant to move on from the soothing call of the stream and those strange eyes of the forest.  He keeps looking back at me, and my eyes must roll in my head twelve hundred times that hour. 

"I'm fine.  Just watch where we're going," I tell him, nudging him on.

Next thing, I run straight into his back.  I stand back rubbing my nose, and he's teetering like he's on the edge of a cliff.  Peering around his shoulders, I see that he is on the edge a cliff.  Sharp peaks rise above and below us.  Neither of us can breathe for a full three minutes.

"Well I guess that stream was leading us up," he says, feeling me out.  

"Yeah, we're way up now.  Way up, and nowhere to go."

A heavy cloud passes over the mountain below us, searing a dark division into the skin of it.  Light and dark lay clearly marked before us.  And here I'm standing in the bright sun, while the cloud blots out his face.

photo by Jocelyn Catterson.

That moment when you screamed in genuine terror and you only heard the terror, that is how my life is lived.

I have tried for ages to suppress my fears, but every night they crawl all over me and build their silken threads in my hair.  I have never heard my own scream.  But short-coated, serious faces tell me that my screams reverberate against the glass walls of my prison in hourly bursts.

I remember thinking prisons were concrete and heavy, inescapable yet safe, protecting you from the outside world. When I shot a man through the heart and I was dragged away with flashing lights, I did not fight.  They would cast me behind thick walls where I would be sheltered forever from my nightmares.  

I know now that fear can enter inside even the strongest prison.  That nightmares are not kept out by prison walls. Nightmares are the walls. 

photo by anita jean.

The only way was up.  Our socks were water-laden, but bare feet had been bloodied by invisible knives in the water.  And water was the only way up.  

"We're searching for the source," he joked.  "For the fountain of youth?"  A hopeful grin.

But my eyes wouldn't smile, so he dropped his.  I couldn't.  Amnesia riddled my brain and paralyzed everything but my feet.  I had to keep walking, but why?  Where?

We paused in a still place, hunched over.  He looked up at me, and his pupils dilated.  

Turning, I glanced over my shoulder.  

A woman sat on a large mossy log, seconds away from where we stood.  We stared.  A grey fox lept up on her lap.  Suddenly, she jerked her head, and our eyes locked.

photo by Robin Mellway.

Her toes lost feeling, and she woke up, blinking.  Where was I? The thought flew to her mind.  Her jeans were cuffed and cold.

There were boots nearby. She pulled them on.  They were too big.  Pins and needles shot through her legs as she tried to stand.  Her knees caved.  The warmth of the granite seeped into her, wrapping her in imagined comfort.  She cradled herself, rocking back and forth, watching the sun mingle with green.

Where was I? she whispered.  She stood and walked into the forest.

photo by Cody Cobb.

Together we stumbled feet-first into the water. It had been clear; our feet muddied it. He gasped as the cold seeped into his boots. He grabbed my shoulder. I hunched over, breathing hard. Where have we come from, I asked, my eyes bleary.

photo by Missy Prince.