The Joy of Life: An Unfortunate Flock

Vague Reminiscing

I woke up to a concerned and unhappy family asking what had happened to their sheets. But after that weird dream, that memory, I just wanted to find a place to warm up and think.

I gave them more food to make up for the blankets, left out into the cold, and made my way back south. I wasn't sure where I was going then, but I figured warmth would be better for thinking. My birds came back to me, freezing and unadjusted to the cold, and I felt a pang of sorrow at the way I have been treating them. Wrapping my over shirt to cover the both of them, I decided to put more bulk on them to keep them warm without me. They came out like two plump, white, semi transparent pigeons from inside my coat, where they stayed until I was able to make it to warmer weather down by a grassland.

I had walked until nightfall, thinking about what I had just remembered. I know it was a memory, a rather dreamlike one. I couldn't remember most of the details after waking up, but it was that one child that wouldn't leave my thoughts. It wasn't Eliot or Alan, I knew for sure, but it still felt like I knew that kid. This time there was a pounding just above where my neck and head meet. And every time I tried to think of that kid, it would pound harder until I got a headache from how loud the heartbeat was. Even the birds, now perched on my shoulder after losing their winter weight, could probably hear my heartbeat as well.

Then there was what I thought at the end of it all. "Left me alone in this world," I think I said. I knew they were missing, but did that mean that they left me? And how? My head was lightly swimming with how long I tried to remember what had happened.

Eventually, I made it to the side of a large lake where people were fishing despite the cold weather. The pounding happened again, now in my forehead. It wasn't nearly as strong as the one in the back of my neck, but it made me think. Looking out to the fishers, the feeling never went away, but it also didn't get louder.

Looking out to the lake, I could see my reflection. Based on what I can remember, I've always looked like this; a basic nose, simple eyes, clear complexion, and a slightly pudgy face; I look standard, not like the disgusting creature in my dream. But as I looked, there it was again; that thumping of blood I've been hearing, now in my stomach. It seemed to twist when I looked away and almost make a popping sound when I looked back in. Even my body seemed to want to try to remember something.

Walking farther along the edge of the lake, going further into the forest beyond it, I had almost expected to feel that heartbeat again. I could feel that same impending force move over me, a monster crawling over their victim, ready to strangle the life out of me. But what I had found was a little cabin.