Connection

Daily writing prompt

What do you wish you could do more every day?

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I am alone in the woods, on a path, in the middle of the night.

It is around three in the morning. I am guessing, there is a complete blackness to the sky, and silence that suggests the birds are still sleeping.

Looking up at the sky, I wonder if anyone, or anything is awake yet, if there is another animal that is like me and drawn to frantic pacing at this time, somewhere anywhere.

I listen for any noise that would hint of any kind of life at all, but there is nothing, there is an absence to the air, that suggests lack.

I breathe and feel like sound is missing from the universe, unsure if there is something wrong with my ears, if I have lost my mind completely, if I am tripping myself out, what it even means to hear at all.

I cough. I can hear myself. There is sound.

Looking up at the sky, I trace the existence of me, as something separate from the night, I can feel my hands, they hurt. The coldness of night bites into them with every movement, a slicing that feels like sharp needles, sticking into them with every movement.

I cough again, and can hear the sound, radiating into the echoing darkness.

I sigh. I am relieved to have released that in this all consuming starkness of light, I am still separate, able to feel myself, as an entity which exists in a universe of parts.

It is very dark. I can see nothing in front of me. The moon is absent from the sky, and there are no stars, blinking, I think I am crying. I am not sure. I don’t remember what that feels like, or how long I have been standing here, and cannot tell if I am looking down or up.

Moving my neck, I figure out I am staring up.

I blink my eyes. Nothing.

I am still shrouded in the all consuming darkness.

It is very cold, the cold has spread from my hands to the rest of my body, feeling like a bitter aching, hurting like sharp knives with each movement, but without the sound of reassuring wind, that makes me aware of passing storms.

I am not sure if this bitter cold, if it is something characteristic of the season, or of it is something I am feeling in this spot, right now that is very much specific to me.

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