It was a beautiful summer day in the vast farmland of Texas. Our farmhouse was just redecorated and is looking great! My family raises livestock and since the drought, we can’t raise much cattle anymore, so our money dropped, so now my big brother, who used to work at the farm four years ago during high school over the summer, got accepted into UT, graduated as a computer scientist and lives with us. Now works about an hour’s drive away at some super computer company. Ma says that it is breaking our family apart, that modern job he has, but this story isn’t about my Ma and Pa and Big-Brother, it’s about me, and my life of falling forever, in the dry ocean of the Texas Plains, or it isn’t… exactly. More like rising, more like falling.

I find myself gone, nothing was near me, nothing. All was the color black, although, you could protest that black is a shade, I agree; but this–this darkness, was light, yet dark, not gray, but not white. Light could shine on it but there was no alter in the color, for example; when the sun shines on your nice, new green winter jacket, it doesn’t change to blue, it just gets lighter, like when the sun shines on a black jacket, you could say it gets lighter, but no, it doesn’t, it turns grey, but I wouldn’t even say turning grey, because it is grey, just a dark grey. This black was a color, it had darkness, it had lightness, it was like a fourth color that our eyes can see, like red, blue, and green. It was new, and it was a paint for my imaginary easel inside my mind. A rainbow of color, hidden color, like a sword sheathed from the eyes of wonder, “What is a new color?” they say, and I now know. I know real Black, but not darkness, the color black was never evil, although it symbolized evil, darkness, hiding, demons, the color black is beautiful, like a shy sunset. The color is misunderstood, I concluded.

In my world of color, I couldn’t feel anything, not the clothes on my body that I wore, but I could feel my hands touching, and my shoes off the ground. I found this odd sensation… relaxing, like I could sleep forever. It was new. I almost closed my eyes, but at the last second, I saw a door open. My eyes opened like a flash of lightning. My floating self, touched the ground, but I felt little weight and heard no footsteps. Maybe I can sneak in a see what is up, I thought to myself. My green sneakers hit the black ground, it was smooth, almost like metal. I ignored the oddness of the black grass that felt like iron or a smooth, carbon fiber and sprinted as fast as I could before the door closed. I felt no pain when I reached my limits the existed on Earth here, I just kept on running, expecting, but feeling no sweat the normally would have trickled down my forehead and off my cheek, splashing onto the ground. I finally reached the now closing door, tumbling through the exit, expecting to feel the ground underneath my chest that would have been flat on the floor from the mighty fall that I took, now was floating in motions, as you call it.

Surprise conquered my emotions, rising to the top, and bringing along Fear and Anxiety. I didn’t know what was happening, all I could think of was… Falling? Rising? Or both? This world was unimaginable, new colors, shifts in gravity, what else? I began to fall into White, landing on a white ramp that looked like opaque quartz, sliding back, feeling a shock wave of expected pain travel through my body starting emergency reflexes to stop my moving, but I couldn’t stop. My subconscious mind was fighting with my conscious mind. I don’t want to stop, I told myself, but then I had a thought of something that wasn’t either of those thoughts, it was small but it was, What you think isn’t real, what you think your conscious mind is, may be something else, stop the fighting. I knew, that was my conscious mind, but I couldn’t stop… or the voice driving me forward and fighting for what it wrong was stronger than me, it was like a battle of a titan versus a dying lion. Although the lion has a good heart, it was dying and can never fight something young and powerful. New, was the lion’s enemy. New, the name of the titan who is about to eat him, but New isn’t evil, just like Old the lion isn’t all good. New was angry, and eats when he is disturbed, but there was no food, because Old was angry at New, and took all the food. Then there was Me, stuck in the middle of Old and New, fighting, like friends fighting you, and your parents yelling at you. Me was the one in charge of New and Old, and “I” made sure that everything was in order, but “I” failed. I failed, causing disruptions in Old, who stole the food from New who made Myself unable to stop. Myself is the leader, myself made all the decisions and was one of a kind. Myself wasn’t like You, or Him. Myself was like her name, Cadence, or the name Myself called her.

I snapped back into reality, or what “I” thought what it was. I never stopped, but hit the opaque quartz wall, falling into… Water? The water wasn’t water, it just looked like it, but when I landed in it, it made no noise, like what was usual in this unreal reality, but the feeling, it was like syrup, but wasn’t sticky. It was comforting, soft like silk, but watery like lemonade. I kept falling, and what I thought was drowning was just me not breathing, but to think of it, the entire time, ever since I arrived, I wasn’t breathing. I never took a single breath in this world. I fell, deeply into the water, and soon.. I felt a lack of oxygen, I was scared, I thought I was going to die, I wanted the arguing in my head to stop Keep falling, you can get through this, New kept saying. No, don’t! Swim up! Old was growling. I couldn’t swim up, I was trapped, nowhere to breathe, no space to wander. It was dark, there was no beautiful black, or surprising white, there was only fear, anxiety. I remembered my parents, Where are they? I thought. From all the arguing and fighting going inside my head, I heard a small whisper, calling out something. I listened. You are okay, swim out, but don’t use your muscles. Use Me, Myself, and I to swim away from the battles inside you, don’t use actions of the physical world, use actions of the mind.
I heard, I closed my eyes, imagined a river, and me stuck in it, unable to get out, with New and Old telling me to get out, before… I couldn’t escape, no matter how hard they tried yelling… because truly, I didn’t have control, but it wasn’t “I’s” fault, it was mine. The river I was in, was rushing towards me, and I was nearing the waterfall, quickly, with all my mental strength I stepped, digging my feet into the sand. The second step, and the third. Finally, I escaped the river.

I breathed in, but I thought immediately after, wasn’t I underwater? I opened my eyes, sounds, replacing the colors I experienced before, spread around me, like a paint color of its own. I was in… bed? I sat up, surrounded by–I was astonished, it was my parents, my sister, my big brother, all surrounding me. Looking around, hearing happy voices, but… where was I? White beds were around me, I looked up, something in a plastic baggie, being held up by a metal pole. I had these little stickies all around me, I pulled them off when a… doctor? I was in the hospital? “Ma, Pa, where am? Why am I hear?” I wondered. “You fell off a bridge, it was a dare that somebody gave you, and thought you wouldn’t take it seriously.” Ma replied in a cheerful tone. “Oh.” I spoke in an embarrassed tone. “We all thought you were dead!” Pa yelled, “your heart rate thingy-ma-bobber went flat, but you managed to pull through, how? I dunno.” I smiled and said “That is just my little secret, isn’t it?”

 

Just a summarized story that I’ve been thinking of for the past couple of days! Hope you like it!