Catherina - Day 26

A lone cliff - parsed through clouds and overlooked its surrounding neighbors. If that circular belt of rocky monsters formed a crown, this one under my foot would be its peak that shall have the largest jewels inlaid in its gleaming surface. Nonetheless, the crag consists of sharp, angular stones reaching for the sky as if numerous canines aggregated, awaiting a cut of flesh. Also, the stone was dark, having the color of nadir in the hour before dawn.

I stood a few steps away from the edge of the cliff, pondering over my next step. Hush, I heard sounds – footsteps, panting, and sweat dripping onto the ground from one's greasy nose tip. At times it embodied a troop of thousands, marching in unison with silent attack dogs sniffing by their feet; however, the nature of that noise is shifting ceaselessly. At another moment, it could hint one dedicated hunter, agile as wind and light as a piece of feather. I was bewildered and alerted. Although I had no idea why I had come to this deserted land, I could assure that no one else ought to be here – where was this place, after all?

Taking another step forward, I lifted my heels to stand taller for looking at what went on at the bottom of this vast basin encircled by rearing mountains soaring into the sky. Nothing - for clouds and mist had blocked my sight, and I could only perceive a gradation of barren grey – whitest on the top owing to that slight sunshine from high above and darkest when reaching the bottom, where mists replaced the clouds.

The sound persisted and got closer behind me, despite its never-changing pitch and volume. I shut my eyes and extended the rest of my senses, feeling a light breeze by my shoulder – warm and humid, and it lingered. No, not merely lasting until fading, but it came and went with a familiar touch of temperature. It was breathing, the precursor for a yet distant being to sense its prey. Gradually, the breathing went before me, blowing a few threads of my hair towards the colossal emptiness off the edge. Is that a guide, or a warning instead? I followed its lead.

Three steps forward, I paused when the brink was a foot-length away. From there, I could see no more clearly as back three steps, as layers of clouds filling every seam of the mountains like a bowl of dirty snow. I turned my head, seeing a human figure emerging at the cliff road's end, from where I had come. That was the last straw. I inhaled as if before diving and leaped forward.

For seconds I could see nothing, and I worried that my body might be colliding against the rocky canines and collapsing into a spread of blood and flesh. Then, I recalled that famous line, "ego contigo ergo sum." Ugh, Latin. I did need a modern translation. Hang on, this sentence did pertain quite some truth: if I could be complaining about four Latin words, then my brain had not yet turned dysfunctional, and following this string of logic, I could derive an optimistic answer that I was probably still alive.

I opened my eyes and found myself sitting on a grass field with patches of wildflowers coloring the green canvas. Indeed, I was down at the hypothesized basin (I knew it should be a basin despite having no proofs) enclosed by the crown of mountains. Through the surrounding watery mist, I could see a vague black line bounded the grass field in an imperfect circle with a break across the meadow.

The grass was soft and juicy, glittering with dews so heavy that had bent their tips. I walked on not without astonishment – such vitality, though commonly found in wetlands or garden, was the antithesis of the preying mountain range around it.

Within a few minutes, I had reached that opening. As if stepping across an invisible boundary, I found myself standing at a farm entrance a second later. A cracked sign with faded green writings hanged from the top of the rusty gate, one panel of which had gone missing. With a curious air of familiarity, this place – with a pebble lane leading into a domain of fallen yellow leaves, stacks of rotting pumpkins, and red and white cabins – called me in a way that it resonated with a dusty heartstring of mine buried from long ago.

Therefore, I walked in. Although, for some inexplicable reasons, the surroundings appeared blurred in my view, I could sense decaying crops, vegetables, and fruit. Somewhere on my left stood bags of apples ripening with darkening crimson, and at an arbitrary location on my right should be corns and berries, all too overdone by the sunlight. Talking of the sun, this farm was baked. Above, the sky was crystal blue scattered with a few marshmallow-like clouds, and the yolk of the sun was glaring at its peak. The season of this space was unknown, and by the fallen leaves that had weaved an orange carpet, I judged it to be the fall – the harvest. Then, another question arose naturally: where had the farmworkers gone? On my way through the farm, I saw nobody – no living creatures, in fact, for the stables were likewise empty. This place was deserted, perhaps in a distant past, as its decaying products may tell.

At that moment, uncovered memories flooded my brain, and I got so overwhelmed that my entire body paused for a minute. Among waves and waves of past incidents, I grasped a general idea that I used to live on this farm - the other "I," perhaps, the girl with braided curly hair and freckles from the sun. However, when I intended to retrieve the part related to this place's tragic fate of being abandoned, all memories had ebbed away just as unexpectedly as they came.

With my brain capacity returning to its average level, my body no longer remained frozen. Bending my fingers, twisting my wrists, and lift my arms – I woke up into a forest immersed in the twilight.

The evening sun went softer, permeating through the woods to form a web of shadow on the open ground in front of me. I noticed that the grass under my feet was dry as if roasted. Beside me stood a sign, pointing to the center of the field where a gigantic figure – or a normal one in the case of me shrunken in size – lay. A demon: his violet skin darkened as tree's shadow blanketed hm. I walked closer and realized that I was so short by his side that the length of his pinky surpassed my height.

Another sign emerged beside me, pointing to the demon's head. Again, like a lost soul in this fantastical land, I followed the guide. Walking around the demon's left half, I noticed that he was alive – his chest heaving and occasionally quivering as if under immense pain. Then, I saw his eyes, the pupil so dark as the cliff I jumped off, and the white blood-shot. With a momentary connection, I understood his suffering: being restrained in this pose for centuries, serving as a pathway connecting two worlds.

Just as I empathized with the demon, a third wooden sign popped up on the ground on my rights, and this one had a bold red arrow pointing towards the devil's ear. "Go in, go in." A gentle voice rang in my mind.

I went in as advised. Stepping over the outermost curl of the demon's auricle, I entered a long tunnel wit pink, fleshy walls – just so as one may expect of an ear's interior. At the end of the channel, I came out into another sunny world with green rolling hills. Once again, a mysterious air of familiarity haunted.\

Instinctively I began to walk up a small hill and passed by a few rusty white caravans. Along the roadside, daisies were blooming, and dandelions were floating in the air with a warm, gentle breeze. The stone-paved lane led to a semispherical building: its white exterior reflecting the glazing sunlight, and behind it a stretch of the city.

A center of scientific research. Staring at its stainless dome, I believed so. I had been here before, seeing it from another angle. Where and when? My memory failed me for yet another time.

photo credit: https://livelovetexas.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Pumpkin-Patch-Featured.jpg