A Crimson Headache [TBD vs Demo Deer] Day 1.5

I pass spare time by watching for the first glimpse of stars in night sky.

But here there is nothing but blinding daylight and blistering cold, and they both seem to be punishing me for daring to look the world beyond in the eye. I cannot live this life as a blind man, for my god would fall from the sky and settle at my feet.

How do I worship one how stands on the same level as myself?

Until the light above me dims, I resolve to keep my eyes trained to the ground in order to realize the nuances I have missed in eighteen years of staring at the stars. The world here is drawn on similarities, but the color scheme differs greatly and causes my eyes to question the confidence they once had in this world.

I find myself about to voice these uncertainties aloud when it comes to mind that this is inappropriate conversation for the present. We had lost an ally, according to what Caine had told me, and it seemed that we were now obligated to pass the following hours in remembrance and reverence.

I knew nothing of him, and for this reason I saw no reason to react in any manner. Regardless, even knowing him would not have been cause for grief. Death is simply the passage from earth to stars to being— a way in which I strive to exist.

But I am not sure what it is that separates this ideal from the now— and perhaps that is the most petrifying part. If I am already in the state of existence for which I long, well, what more is there for me to search for in this life? If I am but earthly traveler composed of stardust waiting to return home, why do I not speed the pace of my journey?

Comfort in the eye of solitude is a danger no man can resist.

It is for this reason that I have refused to travel alone, though I am still not sure of the company Cade and Caine bring. Cade and I are related by casual circumstance— a place of birth does not truly tie two people at the heart, that is for sure. And Caine. Caine taught me how to whistle that night spent in open wind. He taught musicality to a heart that only understood the property of foundational rhythm. I do not know how much value this adds to the self, and I do not know whether or not I am now indebted to him in some way.

“We’ll be safe in here, I reckon.”

I hold my tongue against questioning the validity of his better judgment and simply nod in agreement, for there is no space in my heart left to be filled with angst against the soul.

We sit in solitude for a moment, and neither Cade nor I find anything worth saying that would do anything other than linger in the air like a bad taste on the tongue.

I am about to apologize— for what I do not know— when Caine rises to his feet and alerts us to the presence of the non-human.

He does not give us a space in which to speak ourselves into existence before striking out with spear and catching the first animal deep across the stomach. I do not see such power in my own limbs, and I imagine myself in the place of wounded animal, all blood guts and spilling.

I choke down sob and watch as Cade draws back bowstring and hurtles himself and arrow toward a similar result. The stream widens and flows more rapidly as the arrow catches just near the initial wound— the drought is coming, my brothers.

My hand is light on the weapon in my hand, and I can feel my ribs attempting to shiver out of my chest. I want to dissolve into earthly matter here, now.

It is not a Tuesday, and I do not know what to do.

My body is a hurricane that loses power before reaching land. As soon as I have begun, the storm has already passed and the moment is gone. The moment was never here, if I am to think about it clearly.

First, my body took hold of itself and weapon in hand rose forward to an occasion hurtling towards it. My body did not know fear until it had already settled into the bones and sent a deep-seated shiver into the soul. My body does not know how to separate itself from soul in the moments when a lack of dualism is most needed.

In the passing time of a second my hand thrust forward, successfully sinking point and spike into the flesh of pristine being. I have distorted the realm of creation and whatever god is out there is not pleased with the decisions this fate of mine has led me to. Lightning is striking in my belly and making sure that I will never eat again.

I will never be hungry again.

This is but another consequence of realizing that you, and your body, are in the process of dying.

Third, I step back and watch blood pour from open wound. The cold cracks my fingers and makes visible the blood that is seeping beneath them. The wind whispers in my ear, “You had better rid yourself of that now, or it will stay there forever. You will be everlastingly red. A girl made of others’ blood and burning anger.”

I start to sob, and I scratch frantically at my skin in an attempt to rid myself of anything that is not wholly of my own.

Fourth, I am still trying to rid myself of my body when the third deer strikes out at me, at what I myself am trying to disappear from— still my heart turns over at the thought of otherness taking its stand against me. Offense is weaving itself into the open places of my body and I am becoming a creature of that whispering wind, all anger and otherness.

All anger and otherness I am as I stumble backward away from the beast. My thigh is gushing and the only way to find some semblance of closure is to hold my hand pressed tightly to the wound. This invites more red under my fingernails and I sob as I fall into the cyclic nature of the presence I have so long feared.

I want to be screaming in agony; I want to find myself saturated in the fear of death or the afterlife or— goddamn, anything.

I want to be afraid of something outside of myself.

Instead I stand dumbly in complacency while Caine and Cade takes strikes against the first animal once more. It is almost dead— you can see it in the eyes.

My eyes are not in this creatures’ and for this I cannot bring myself to turn my weapon on him in tandem with the other two. Instead, I turn my eyes to Cade and Caine and back again until the need for decisiveness is lost among the nausea of indecision.

There is red under my fingernails and the stain will not come out.