Who am I? I must be someone, right? No, I guess I could be a plant. What kind of plant am I though? I’d like to be an old oak tree, the type kids shelter under to read a book on a hot summer day. Or maybe a redwood. So majestic, just the sight of it brings you a feeling of wonder and fantasy.
Hmm. Redwoods.
Brief images slipped in and out; he felt like a sailor watching a lighthouse beam on the dark seas. Tents and sleeping bags, meat grilling over the campfire, angry shouts, beer cans spilling out of a plastic trash bag. Camping in the redwoods.
Yes, I’m not a plant. I’m a human. Those were good memories, mostly.
There seemed to always be an argument between his parents on their camping trips. About what, he never knew. Probably money, love, children, the stuff adults like to argue about.
Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about things like that. I’m just a kid. A human kid. All I have to do is play with my action figures and pretend to listen in school. Soon it’ll be summer and I won’t even have to go to school!
Huh? He looked down at his hands. Why are my hands big? Where did these wrinkles come from? I’m just a kid. Please, no! I don’t want to be an adult! I don’t want to argue about stupid green paper!
Click, clack, click, clack. Over and over and over and over. His fingers danced on the keyboard like a zombie ballerina, devoid of any thought or creativity. How did this happen? Where did all the time go? How can a single 8 hour shift feel so long? He must’ve been here for years, doing this zombie dance.
Life is meaningless. It is mean, and as time passes you become less and less. Until nothing remains. Just the fragments of the fragments of what you used to be.
You hope for a break, a moment to catch your breath, but your rent doesn’t take breaks. Your job doesn’t take breaks.
If only time would just stop.
DAVID.
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DAVID.
DAVID.
“DAVID.” A crackled voice burned through the nebulous fog and the memories of an uneventful life swarmed his brain. The memories had a divider, splitting them into two. The increasingly murky life on Earth, and another life, one vividly outlined in crisp flames.
The events of the last few hours, if it indeed had been hours, returned to the forefront of his mind. He had barely limped his way back to the main cavern, and passed out on the spot. When he woke up, Kleymon said he would teach him what he needed to know to leave the cave safely.
Things had gone like this:
“Are you serious, Kleymon?”
“YES, DAVID, I AM”.
“Getting high on this drug you mysteriously hid will let me leave this cave?”
“YOU HAVE CHANGED MY WORDS TO YOUR OWN. THIS PLANT IS USED BY THE SEA-DWELLERS IN RITUAL CEREMONIES. IT WILL ALTER YOUR PERCEPTION OF WHAT YOU HUMANS CALL ‘TIME’. DOING THIS WILL ALLOW YOU TO CREATE THE FLAME I USED ON YOUR WOUND. IF YOU CAN DO THIS, YOU CAN LEAVE THE CAVE.”
As always, he really had no choice in the matter. Kleymon directed him to a sea-weed looking plant hidden below a rock in the cavern. He ate a few bites of it, then proceeded to lose all sense of identity and time. How long had he been in that drugged fog?
“DAVID.”
He rubbed his temples, eyes still closed.
“That was horrible.”
“YET, YOU SUCCEEDED.”
“I did?”
He opened his eyes and watched white flames dip and rise over his right hand. These were brighter than the faint flames that still encircled the wound on his arm.
“THE FINAL STEP NOW. BREATHE THE FLAMES IN.”
This used to be the type of thing he would question.
He brought his hand close to his head. His lungs were still weak, but he took as deep a breath as he could, sucking the flames into his mouth until none remained.
The white flames had no feeling to them, even after he had breathed them in. In that sense, they were sort of like how he had been on earth. They existed but nothing more. He flashed orange flames into life on his now empty hand. Their warmth was comfortable.
“ARE YOU READY TO LEAVE?”
David walked to his backpack and took out his smartphone. The last time he checked his phone was right before he had made the portal and left Earth. He remembered clearly his last time on Earth: 6:43am, March 1st.
He held the power button down and watched the dim screen light up. The battery icon in the corner read 99%. He thought it would’ve drained a bit more.
The time read…could that be possible?.
It was 11pm, March 1st. It had only been about 18 hours. Not even a full day. In 18 hours he had become a murderer. A mass murderer actually. He hadn’t killed the Niven himself, but he let Kleymon do it. An accomplice, at the least. He had killed those raskers. On Earth, the thought of stepping on a snail on the sidewalk sickened him. The ethics of everything he had done, how easily he had done it, was too much to think about, so he focused instead on the exhaustion still welted in his body. Leaving the cave could wait. He needed to sleep. Extinguishing the flame over his hand, he laid out the blanket from his camping gear, and almost instantly fell into a dreamless slumber.