You Wake Up

Pause for a moment. Picture yourself in an empty scene. You're standing in a forest. The trees tower over you; green leafy giants. If the timing is perfect, the clouds part and the wind rustles the canopy just right so that sunlight trickles down like water. The ground below is covered in brush, remnants of an older forest. Every so often there is a rustle in the debris, maybe it's a chipmunk foraging for food, maybe it's a particularly large worm carving its own way. A small tree stands before you, noticeably dry; dying. You reach your hand out and effortlessly snap a twig off. There's a visceral feeling to it; the snap. A cracking sound, a splinter flies off into the brush below, a slight sting in your hand. The twig smells like the forest, it's earthy - clean. You snap it again between your fingers and let the pieces fall through your hand. You feel every part of this process; it's tangible, it's real. You wake up. You re in bed laying under a sheet that bunched itself into disarray over-night. You look around, you see the shape of your room, not the objects in it. You stare at the ceiling, every fiber of your being wanting to be back in that forest. But it s gone. You re left with the reality; you need to get out of bed, an entire day awaits. Work, meeting with your boss at 3:00PM, lunch on the bench outside the bench just under the shade of that large Maple tree. You don t actually want to be in that forest. You want to feel that feeling, that visceral feeling. But it s gone. All that s left is a fog. It fills your head, a gas expanding to fill the volume of its container. You somehow feel less awake than you did in that forest. You start the day.