The forest

   The eagle landed on top of the three, in a place towards the middle of the forest. The place was a sea of green; no piece of the ground below could be seen below the trees. However, it did not seem random that she chose the tallest tree to land and grab by the claws. She firmly stood there, looking around, waiting for something. She did not seem hungry or worried about any of her younglings. She just appeared to be making guard or something of the sort. She suddenly opened her wings and screamed.

 The sound out of her beak was not the one normally made by a bird, or an eagle or any kind of animal. The sound was strangely metallic, like something more suited to a robot or a creation of that sort. The bird made sounds for a while, alone in the middle of the forest. She then remained silent again, as clouds of storm formed above the forest. Shortly after, rain started washing away everything from the forest. The soil was turned into mud and the dead leaves were soon washed away by the flood.

 However, the forest was too silent during those moments. As the rain descended to the ground and then washed all the dirt away, no animals made sounds or tried to hide from the water. Actually, there was virtually no movement around the forest, except for the water rushing to the streams and the rivers. It was a land of trees deprived of any life. No bugs humming or squirrels hopping from one tree to the next. No other birds besides the eagle that still stood on top of the tree, being washed by the rain.

 The clouds above the forest where also strange, not moving or trembling as they produce thunder, but just frozen in the sky. The lights inside of them seemed artificial, as if they were being made on purpose instead of naturally produced by the ions and all of that. The colors of the clouds were also too perfect, too ideal. They seemed to be painted on top of the sky, not having that special quality of the real clouds, that thing when you feel you can grab them and you even imagine how soft they are.

 Moments later, the rain seemed to intensify. In some parts, tree bark began falling to the ground, revealing something very strange. The rain that was falling had changed somehow, not only being water but also something else. This did not yet affect the eagle, but she did seem uneasy, even as unnatural as she looked. More tree bark fell to the ground and also some flowers, which seemed to be eaten away by the water that carried them far away from the place where they had fallen. The floods were soon tainted in the colors of the flowers that came from all over the forest.

  Another color was also present in the water. Some red tint that was slowly carried away also permeated the water and the rivers down the valley. It was all brought down to a lake made up of still water. Many streams entered the lake and it was also surrounded by forest and large lumps of dead leaves that rotted fast, producing more color over the lake. There was a strange color in the water, towards the middle of the lake, something a bit lighter than the normal color of the water of a lake.

 More than that, something was moving in the middle of the lake. It looked like a fish but much larger than anything in existence in the world. The lake was far from any ocean or land populated by people, so it was very likely that creatures there would be very particular to that strange landscape, where clouds seemed to be painted on the sky and the rain was acidic and melted flowers into a mush of rainbow colors. The fish swimming in the middle of the pond was something not so abnormal after all.

 A thunder suddenly descended from the clouds and struck the fish in the middle of the lake. The light discharged illuminated the sides of the lake and made the fish more defined. After the electricity dissipated, the creature jumped out of the water, looking to have been activated in some way by the thunder. The creature started swimming around and around the lake, absorbing the remains of the flowers and the leaves that had accumulated on the edges of the lake. It ate like crazy, as if it had never eaten.

 The creatures splashed all around the lake. The eagle flew by the water and looked at the fish trashing and eating. It just moved it wings a couple of times and then disappeared somewhere on the other side of the forest, as if it had never been up there. Hours later, the fish finished eating and it submerged itself into the lake, again doing circles in the middle of the body of water. It had returned to that weird trance stage, which was apparently only one of two things it did in its strange life.

 That forest was certainly a very special place. There were signs all around that it hadn’t been created in a natural way, instead being constructed by something or someone. It was the creation of some mastermind with a plan that had never really been realized. The eagle, the clouds, the fish creature and the acidic rain could not be everything that strange place had to offer. Something else had yet to be revealed. Maybe a reason for the place’s existence or maybe the face of the creatures that had imitated the most natural place on Earth. Someone had planned something but had never finished it.

 Maybe, just maybe, they were still missing something to properly finish their project.

Hospital

  I wanted to get out. I wanted to scream too. But I couldn’t. My mouth couldn’t open so, of course, no voice or sound could come out. I cried though, that was one of the things I was able to do. My tears tasted funny, salty but weird. I got tired of crying after a while and then I just feel asleep. When I woke up, some doctor was poking at the machine that was connected to my body. He didn’t even look at me, as if I wasn’t there. He just wrote some things on a note pad and then left, leaving me trying to ask what had happened.

Because, no matter how much I tried, there was no way I could remember what had happened. I was certain I had been sick for a couple of days at home, some kind of flu or maybe a virus inside the stomach. It was awful but not strange, nothing out of the ordinary. And suddenly, one day, I woke up in that hospital feeling as if I had been beating up by someone. From the first moment, I wasn’t able to speak and whatever the put in my veins was making me doubt every single thing that I thought when I was awake.

 My body always felt awful. I was hurting too much every day and it felt there was something strange. One would think I would feel better as the days went by but I didn’t. I was feeling just as bad on day one as on the other ones. I don’t even know how long I was there. One night though, I heard something odd. Someone was crying very loudly and then she began to scream. She screamed for a long while until the voice stopped. Somehow, hearing her had made me feel a bit better, as if I could finally step out of that bed.

 But I didn’t do that. I glanced at the machine that was connected to me and realized it was probably telling the people in that place how I was feeling and maybe even what I was doing. If I disconnected it, maybe they would notice it in a few minutes and I would be caught before I could imagine a plan to get out of that place. I had to be smarter than them; I had to really think of a good plan to run away, to escape what was most likely some kind of prison or mental hospital. An awful place in any case.

 They kept injecting me with the same drugs but, luckily, I realized they really didn’t work anymore. My sore legs and arms where fighting the poison they were pumping in my veins. I felt better by the hour and they had no idea. I was tempted to smile but I still couldn’t do that. For some strange reason, I wasn’t able to speak yet. I couldn’t make any sounds but I had grown accustomed to that. In my head, there was only the idea of escaping that place and talking had nothing to do with that. I had already come up with a plan and didn’t even care if it could be successful.

  That very night, I stood up for the first time in a long time and I grabbed the machine to avoid getting disconnected from it. I then peaked through the nearest window, which was almost impossible as it was a bit higher than me. I had to stand on the tip of my toes in order to look down at a large yard made of stone. It had been raining. There was no one outside and the place looked as if it wasn’t precisely populated by many people. By the look of the place, it seemed to be far away from any city or town.

I then walked to the down and realized it wasn’t locked. They didn’t have a reason to lock the doors as they kept me, and probably all other patients, too drugged up to even walk around the room. I have to confess that I wasn’t feeling perfect right then, but I had to do something soon because I didn’t know why they were keeping us there. Maybe the final step in their “care” for us was to kill us. So waiting forever was not really the best choice. I just had to do something, no matter the result.

 I opened the door a bit, enough to look outside. It was very dark and even colder than inside the room. I couldn’t hear any sound, not a voice or anything else. I closed the door and faced the biggest problem I had: the chord in the machine was not long enough for me to parade around the hallway outside without the nurses and doctors noticing I wasn’t in my bed anymore. So I had to make a choice. It didn’t took me very long to decide to rip off the thing that was loading drugs into my system.

 The moment I did it, my body felt a little bit weaker but I had to go out soon and run down the hallway, hoping the nurses and doctors were kept away from the rooms outside of their working hours. It seemed I was right, because I didn’t see any of them as I descended to the ground floor. It was only when I got to the yard I had seen from above, that I actually saw a group of them running up the stairs, probably going to my room. I hid in the shadows for a bit and then stepped outside, in order to find an exit.

 It seemed nature wanted me to be successful because a storm begin brewing in a few moments and then rain came down hard. The water and the mist caused by the cold was enough to hide my body from my captors. I stepped out into the garden and tried finding a way out. But there was a tall brick wall all around the compound. So I had to make an effort, I had to make myself feel like shit once again, swallow all the pain in order to finally escape. I jumped many times until I finally got a grip and then my muscles ached as I hoisted my body to the other side of the wall.

 Everything hurt, but I knew I couldn’t just stay there complaining. I ran through some fields of wild flowers and then deeper into a forest. I had no idea where I was; I wasn’t able to recognize anything about my surroundings. But I was certain that no hospital of that kind could be too far away from some town or city. They probably needed a supermarket for groceries and pharmacies to get some of the drugs. At least I hoped that’s the way it all worked, because I had no other thing to do.

 The forest was rough and I had to stay there overnight. It was too dense and there was nothing I could grab to eat, but somehow I felt much better there than in the hospital. I felt all the drugs coming out of my body as I peed and sweated, feeling much better by the next morning. I walked even more that day and was lucky enough to find a small village. I got there walking by the road. I hoped not to look too scary, but there wasn’t a lot I could do related to that. I just needed to do something, to take the final risk.

 The first person that saw me was a little boy and that wasn’t probably the best thing ever. He got scared and called her mother, who came by very fast. I tried to talk again, but I couldn’t. She screamed and said things and I felt very dumb for not realizing that it would be very hard to communicate with others without being able to talk. So I just knelt in front of them and tried to show them how defenseless I was and how much in need of their help I was. I stayed like that for a while, until they left.

 I thought they had been scared and had just run away, but they did come back in a few minutes with a policeman. I was glad to see someone that could actually help me. I knelt again and put my hands together, trying to make him understand that I couldn’t talk. He apparently understood. He asked me to come with him and I nodded. He put me inside his car and we then rode for a while, until we got to the police station. There, some doctor checked on me, which made me feel awful but I knew it was necessary.

 Luckily, I still remembered how to write. My hands were not very ready to do it, but it was clear enough for the cops to understand. They sent patrol cars to the hospital and freed many people that were being submitted to experimental drugs of many kinds. None of them could talk either.

 I eventually realized I wasn’t in my own country.  I couldn’t remember everything from my past but it was clear I was completely out of my element. I had to learn to be unable to speak and it took me a while to get to the memories that would help me getting back home.

I choose freedom

   I had never been the type of man that smokes. However, after so much shit happening around and to me, I figured smoking was not really the worst thing in the world. I had received all the cancer pep talks, all the advice to tell me it looked so disgusting and the smell was so repelling. But I didn’t care. I had already been in a hospital for several weeks and had been given a bunch of things to do, as if I had just entered middle school or something. I threw all that crap out to the garbage and decided to leave as freely as I could.

 Then again, freedom was a word people said but rarely understood in these times. Freedom is not what it used to be. Now freedom has limits, it has rules and regulations. Freedom stopped existing a long time ago and gave way to all these people that just want to rule over everything people are able to do with their bodies, including the use of their penis and their brain. Freedom doesn’t mean shit anymore. The good thing is that I don’t give a rat’s behind either. The world around can crumble and I will crumble with it.

 In my small flat, the one I barely have money to pay for, it is me who determines what freedom is. And my version of freedom involves not using clothes around the house, except when cooking and just doing whatever I want, in whichever way I want to do it. I eat whatever I feel like and I invite all the people I want, when I want it. And if I want to be alone for days, I do that too. Books and movies become my refuge and I binge them like crazy for a while until I’m ready to be in the world of the living again.

 I do have sex when some of the people I invite come. They seem a little bit scared sometimes, because my flat is not the kind of mess they are expecting to see. They look at me and think they have me all sorted it, some weird hipster fuck that rarely bathes, smokes weed and smells funny. And then I’m not, because people often prefer to form ideas of others in their heads instead of properly getting bothered to really know someone. Then again, sometimes there’s no time to really get to know each other.

 Sometimes they only come here for a fuck and that’s all we do. And I try to make it good for them, because if I went to a guy’s house, after paying the bus fare and maybe dressing nice and getting something to do before fucking, then I would want the whole experience to be at least enjoyable. Sadly, many times that doesn’t happen, especially when people come thinking one thing and then it becomes this other event in which no one has sex and everyone is miserable because they are dealing with some kind of shit. Those dates are the worst and after those I go back to my books and movies.

 Weird or not, I never mix both those things. I never ask someone to come and then watch a movie. Not only does that seem counter productive to me, its almost invasive and unbearable. I enjoy watching movies and those that I love are like precious gems to me. Sharing them with people that may not be able to see what I see in them, would be problematic, to say the least. And I never talk about books, religions, politics or anything like that before having sex. No idea how many right-wingers I’ve brought in. And I don’t want to know.

 Besides sex, I really like to cook and sometimes I do that with the only friends I have. We’re only three, two guys and one girl and we like to get together sometimes and just chat away, and talk about all those things I can’t and won’t talk about with the people I sometimes bring in. It’s fun, because it makes me change a little bit every now and then. It makes the place look different and feel different, and it’s not all about the food we make. It’s about the trust and all the other feelings that are able to exist in those circumstances.

 Those two are my only friends in the whole planet. There’s no one else. I know the have other friends, their social lives being way more diverse and entertaining than mine. They sometimes mention those other people but I think they know how uncomfortable it is for me to hear about people I don’t know. They only do it when they want to make a point or tell a funny story. And its not because I forbid it in my house or something, it is just that they know what kind of person I am and they have decided to respect that.

 They ask me about the people I bring in my house and always ask questions, trying to get funny stories and anecdotes from me. They know how it is and that weird stuff always happens. I tell them and they usually laugh their asses off and that’s how we know our gathering is going well: by counting how many times we’ve laughed as hard as we can. Of course, we don’t actually count the times but we are very aware that some times things are different, because of some exterior occurrence that has the power to change the ambiance.

 That happened on the first meeting after I got out of the hospital. They had visited me there a couple of times and when we decided to meet up just the three of us, it just seemed odd. For most of the time, it felt like we didn’t even knew who the others were, as if three complete strangers had suddenly appeared in some random living room with glasses of wine and little things to eat. Even the food tasted funny that time. Thankfully, it all ended very early and the next time we actually discussed it all and started having fun like all those other times before. It was a tough situation.

 The third kind of visitors I get in my flat are my mom, my dad and my brother. They often come all at the same time, as if it was an invasion. I have to say that I really like catching up with mom and dad and I try to visit them in their place as often as I can. It gets a little bit tiring because they always want me to do something for them, but I guess that’s one of the things that happen when your only brothers is married and has a full family of his own to take care of. They assume he’s too busy to ever help at all.

 Of course, he kind of is but he could still visit them more often. The reason he comes to my house when they come is because he can then do two visits at the same time and that’s time saved for him. The thing is he brings his wife with him and his two children. Yeah, I think she’s kind of a bitch and I know she thinks something similar about me. And the children are okay but a little bit to overprotected, so they tend to do dumb things and ask the stupidest questions, but I really do not blame them for that. I blame her.

 She’s always going around my house telling them not to touch my things or not to do one thing or the other. I always tell the kids, away from her, that they can do whatever they want as long as they don’t break anything or do any serious damage to my place. But besides that, they can jump on the bed or flood the sink and play with boats or whatever the fuck they want to do. Oh, and she also hates that I curse but, as it is my place and I was in a hospital for so long, even my parents have decided not contradict me on that.

 I love watching her all pissed off while we eat. Not only because my concept of freedom goes much further than hers, but also because she knows she cannot say a word. She’s in my house and they are my nephews, my parents and my brother. In a way, she’s the one that doesn’t belong there. But I would never tell that to my brother who loves the woman like a mad idiot. He knows we don’t get along but has decided to ignore that in order to have a peaceful family life. And I greatly admire him for doing that. Very well done.

 When everyone leaves, I clean and get everything in order. I take off my clothes and lie down in my bed and do what I like, read something or watch a movie. But sometimes I also stay there, looking at the window or at the ceiling, just thinking about how much my life changed after I had the accident.

 We all thought I was going to die. We really did. The doctors still tell me it was nothing short of a miracle that I was able to live through that, to survive. I do consider myself lucky but I wonder about the responsibility that gives me. I’ve decided to be really free. That’s what I think the world wants from me.

I shouldn't care but I do

   When I woke up, the world was still blue. I had slept for only a few hours, which was very impressive because I had been drinking a lot the night before. However, I didn’t drink nearly enough to forget about the person that I was sharing the bed with. He was sleeping on his side, his face towards mine, gently breathing with his mouth slightly opened. I wanted to reach for his face and just caress it for a moment, but I realized it was still too early in the morning and it would be cruel to wake him up.

 I decided to only stare at him. I wanted to detail every single feature of his face and try to remember it for a long time. I was the kind of guy to have casual sex pretty often but they would normally leave after we had finished. Our connection to one another was always physical and, when all was done, they knew they had to leave without much fuss. That was the first time I shared my bed in a very long time and it was also the first time in a while that I could actually say that I really liked the person I spent the night with.

 Of course, we had sex. But it wasn’t the kind of passionate and rough sex that I would have with just about any other man. It had been special in a way, for him and for me, I’m sure of that. The way he handled his body and the sounds that came out of his body, as well as what he caused in me, all of it told me that it wasn’t just another crazy Friday night. It was something more and I really wanted to know why or how, because it wasn’t still completely clear. Maybe that was because it was so early.

 My head wasn’t buzzing or hurting, I could handle my liquor. Maybe he was a little bit on the weaker side, which I found to be adorable. Then, he said something in his sleep and the moved slightly, but remained facing me. He was really beautiful. Or maybe he wasn’t and I was just imagining him to be even more beautiful than he really was. Maybe I was idealizing the moment and everything was just as usual. Maybe the real problem was that I was feeling alone and empty, and casual sex had run its course.

 I had thought of that many times and it always hunted me how things change from one moment to the next. I mean, I love the way I behave and I do things because I like them. I don’t feel any pressure to settle down or to go out and find someone to fuck with. Not at all. I just feel this freedom inside me that lets me do anything that I want, wether it is being with that beautiful man in bed or working out or eating breakfast. The thought of breakfast though, made my stomach growl. It was very early but I really wanted something to eat. So I carefully got up and went out the room.

 It almost made me laugh how much shit there was around the apartment. There was a pizza box with two very cold slices just resting there. A group of people had come to have a nice evening of talking and games, so we had ordered some food after drinking several bottles of alcohol. I remembered how some were carrying others out the door, how I received messages of “I got home” while I was making my new friend moan in my room. It’s funny how life takes in one place and puts thing in the other.

 The fridge was almost empty as it was one of those weekends I had to go to the supermarket. Luckily, there was still some orange juice left because some friends had ordered two bottles of it to mix with vodka. That made me do a funny face, there by myself, reminding me of how much alcohol I had drank. I poured some juice on a clean glass and then grabbed some bread from the cupboard. As I was looking for the toaster, a sleepy voice greeted me and that made me smile from ear to ear.

 He was there, wearing my Avengers t-shirt. I had worn it the night before and then it had been thrown to the floor when we started kissing. Apparently, he was too shy to come out of the bedroom fully naked. He had also put on his underwear, some lovely red briefs. I put the toaster on the counter and greeted him, smiling. I then realized that I was naked, with nothing on at all, and that I was also probably sporting some crazy hair and bad breath. Thinking about that got me paralysed. His smile made me forget all about it in seconds.

 We had toast with strawberry jam for breakfast and we shared the glass of orange juice because all the others had to be clean. His skin was a bit pale, which I imagined was all about the drinking. I asked if he had slept well, and he nodded. He said I was very warm all night, so that helped him sleep better. It was so strange, to talk to him as if he was some unknown person that had just walked in. True, we had only met a couple of times, but we were past conversations as polite as the one we were having by the counter.

 So I just went and asked him if he had something to do that morning. He told me he never woke up so early and that he would only go out of his house in the afternoon, to have something to eat. So he was free until then. I asked about his parents, as he lived with them, and he assured me they weren’t the kind to worry too much. Actually, they never seemed to worry or ask any explanations from him. I found that to be really strange but left it there, because I know how awkward it feels when some person just drills you about your personal life. It’s just one of those things you shouldn’t do.

 In order to continue the conversation and not have some weird moment of silence, I told him I usually went out on Saturday mornings to the supermarket, as it was one of the moments of the week when my nearest grocery store would be almost empty, deprived of any crying children or annoying people trying to find products they would never buy. He laughed at that and I smiled because his laugh was just perfect. I realized then that maybe I was idealizing him but I decided I did not care, for once.

 Normally, I’m not the most romantic man ever.  But right then and there, I decided to go around the counter and just seat besides him and look at him as I did when we were in bed. He clearly thought that was a bit odd, but he stood still and just finished eating. When he did, I took his hand and just caressed it for a while. Then, I stood up from my seat, and walked slowly towards the bathroom, still grabbing his hand. He came gently and it was him who closed the door. We kissed the moment he did that.

 We made love again in the shower and then again in the bedroom, after we had cleaned ourselves thoroughly. I thought he was going to leave then but he decided to come with me to the supermarket. We spent the whole morning together and then we parted ways after he helped me get everything in order in my house. He left with a kiss on the lips and a smile. He hasn’t been back since then. It has only been a few days but I already miss him. Am I too sensitive or something? Should I just not get attached?

No. Again, I cannot care too much. It’s dangerous.