Shiny on A Hill

There was no possible way it was real. But what if it was? What if this was my only way of escape? A three day camping trip turned into five days lost in the woods. Someone had told me that if you spent three days camping, no electronics, no artificial lights, just you, rising and setting with the sun, that would reset your internal clock and you'd sleep at night. Apparently, I'm not the chosen one because it didn't work. Three days without sleeping pills, just led me to night hikin', which led to me being hopelessly lost by dawn, which led to me not getting back to civilization, which led to even more stress and even less sleep. No sleep led to hallucinating. Vividly.

I've been here before. That's how I got diagnosed. It starts with auditory hallucinations. My diseased brain seems to favor meeting Biblical characters. It usually starts with just Satan laughing. Usually at me. Jerk. You'll understand my distress when you meet an angel during a full-blown hallucination. Like I'm doing now. "BE NOT AFRAID." Too many eyes, all wings and rings, hover before me on the path.

"Oh hush." I step around them.

Sometimes I still know when I'm hallucinating. It makes me feel like I'm not too far gone. I am close. I ran out of water yesterday. Thank goodness I had the good sense to put my canteen on my hip before I took off. At this point I assume everything but endless trees is an illusion. Even the shiny house on the hill I'm headed for.

This is absolutely where I'd build a house if I were an eccentric billionaire. However, last time I checked, The National Park Service wasn't selling land. They might put a watchtower on the hill but not a shiny house.

The path is growing steeper under my feet. I'm going to feel like I'm walking perpendicular before it's all over. What's worse is, it may just be some crazy mountain hermit who shoots at me instead of helping me.

For a moment I see him. Some scary old guy with a beard down to his knees, and he's holding a shot gun to blow a big ol' hole in me... But then I realize he looks a little too much like The Old Man of The Mountain in Betty Boop. He disappears. I make him disappear. I'm getting stronger.

I trip and slice my hand on a sharp rock. My ex is there to help me from my knees. "C'mon, sweetie. You're so close."

I shut my eyes real tight. Of course I'm so lonely I'd dream of her . She's still there when I open my eyes. "Don't call me sweetie." She and I walk up the hill hand in hand. There are worse hallucinations. This one, at least has my best interest at heart. Granted, this one took my dog when we broke up, but at least it likes me.

I can see the windows of the shiny big house now. They're massive. I am approaching from the east and the entire side of that house is just glass. It looks like a giant doll house, or a fish bowl. I wouldn't be able to sleep there either. Too much morning light. Sometimes I can manage midnight to noon all by myself without the intervention of modern miracles.

Wait.

If the house isn't perfect, it might be real.

"HEY!"

I break my hold on my not-really-there ex girlfriend's hand and run towards the not perfect house hoopin', hollerin', and wavin' my arms over my head like a crazy person-- which I had just been hallucinating vividly, so.

"Hey!" An old hippie woman looks up from the staircase she was descending. Shock crosses her features. She wears a colorful moomoo and her long hair pulled back in two combs. She looks like a butterfly. Hippie butterfly lady rushes down the stairs, across the living room floor, hesitates at the hutch at her door-- for her gun, I assume. This is Wyoming. Everyone is armed to the teeth.

She meets me on the front lawn. "Hey baby, what's wrong?" She shouts to me. Empty right palm pointed towards the sun.

Please be real. "I need some help. I'm lost."