Lost In The Dark
By Vincent Fitch
Part 3 : The Dark Acres
The world began to shake a little bit. You watch as a small crack appears on the landscape above you. It was just a very tiny crack and nothing else. The desert landscape disappears and a meadow in the middle of a massive rainforest treeline appears in its place. The meadow's tall grass and the forest surrounds you. You have a deep uneasy feeling about the new environment, the feeling you were having of the rainforest was very ominous. You feel a magnetic force pull you into the forest. The forest is crawling with taunting whispers and a sense of dreadful memories of your accomplishments from which you have either given up on, failed at, or felt unworthy of attempting due to self doubts. The sound of the taunting whispers and overwhelming thoughts cause the clouds above to form and the forest begins to rain heavily. Fear of remembering your own life is beginning to become more traumatizing and a weight of the world pins you down on the ground. The taunting whispers become louder but only to the level of typical talking. The forest started to get to you, a very tiny crack in your thoughts helped you find the strength to get up and you run out of the forest, back into the meadow. Standing back in the place where you started.
You watch as the clouds above dissipate. The rain stops and the taunting no longer reaches your ears. You feel safer outside of the forest but you have nowhere to go. The fear of remembering the past. The fear of being criticized for your weaknesses and flaws. You feel safe to just avoid any further taunts, advisors, riddles, and overwhelming scenarios. It is better to just stay at a safe distance from the treeline. The only place that is safe is to stand in the middle of the meadow and stay in the same place for which you first were at. No longer risking the painful emotions. No more willing to push forward. You lost your spirit, your own heart, your shadow is gone, and you no longer have any faith in yourself. Now you are breaking down and being more consumed by the anathematic thoughts. The anger from being taunted, the tears of being weak and worthless, the crushing weight of being reminded of the past. You don't want to be near the treeline and you are too tremulant to move forward. You sit down on the ground and take refuge in the tall grass. You feel a temporary calmness resonating from your own wounds, finally you are relaxing and enjoying the bliss of nescience. You closed your eyes and fell asleep.
You wake up and discovered that you are now in the forest but no matter where you are running to, you are unable to find the meadow. You feel more tremulant. The trepidation of being unable to resist the forest. The constant conflicts between your own self perspectives. You feel the sense of confusion of what you have to do. You ignore anything that would be motivational and uplifting. Instead, you are beginning to become more wrapped up by the memories of your own failures and insecurities. You feel like giving up on your life, but it is blinded by the crack from above. You see the small crack whenever you closed your eyes, but it is not enough to make the miserable thoughts to subside. The memories of your own life are stronger than the tiny crack of dawn. You begin to run through the forest. The dark clouds above return and the downpour of the rain floods the forest floor. Running screaming, tearful, broken and afraid of confrontations of yourself. You fall to the ground, you picked yourself up and continued to run through the forest. The taunts return but are louder and more demoralizing. The taunts are yelling, “You need to remember that you can't do anything right. Everything you have done has been a failure. You suck at life. Just give up on continuing further. Don't bother attempting anything, you always fail at it anyway. Listen to my words, you are not going to survive, because you can't do anything correct in your own life. You are a useless waste. You have nothing to offer others. You will never succeed in life. Don't continue with pushing forward, just stop ignoring the words of advice on how much of a worthless piece of crap you are. You always fail. You have no skills or talent. You are not smart enough to know that you can't accomplish what you are required to do. Do not forget about your mistakes and weakness. Give up and let it all end. Leave it all behind you. Don't continue further. No you are not going to succeed in life. Fall! Crash! Burn! Rot! Perish! Give Up! Failure! Weak! Unworthy! Vacuous!” The forest is affecting your self confidence. You begin to feel trapped in the forest with no escape, no assurance, no end in sight. You fall to the ground and picked yourself up, you continue to run, and run, you run with no escape from the taunting forest, the dark clouds above, and the rain flooding beneath your feet.
You stand up and are breathing heavily due to the non-stop sprinting in the forest. You are coughing from the intense burning in your lungs. You tear a chunk of the bark off of trees to mark your own path behind you. You tear parts of your clothes and leave a trail of your own belongings behind you. The path you have created behind you kept growing and growing. You are no longer listening to the constant belittling taunts of the forest. A sense of wonder kept seeping through the crack. It made you have a tiny bit of doubt of the taunts, in which you question about, if you were only running around in a circle, was the thought that was leaking from the tiny crack. The clouds dissipated once more. The rain has stopped. You feel another earthquake. Above your head, up where the meadow resides, in the spot where you first started. A new crack appears. It is another tiny crack but separate from the other one. This new crack erased the forest. You are still lost and confused about your own journey.
