Last night you fell asleep in your own bed, cradled by the familiarity of the world which you built for yourself. This morning you awaken, nothing is what it seems, nothing is what it should be. Silence glides through the world like an invisible beast filling even the tiniest spaces. You feel it in your lungs, wrapping its ice-cold body around your breath. It turns and then settles, leaving a weight like a boulder inside of you. You do not know how long it will sleep there.
But you do know that something has changed.
You pull back the covers and place your feet delicately onto the floor. The floor. The floor which was there but now is not. You look down slowly as your feet touch not the expected smooth wood of your bedroom, but a dense blanket of grass which springs back into shape as you recoil your feet in shock. A second glance around your room reveals things your sleep crusted eyes were not yet awake enough to take in: the cracks in the walls and ceiling, the ivy climbing like a curious creature upwards as though intent on getting the best view of this strange new reality, and a sense of unknowing which hangs from the cobwebs in the corner.
It is now that you look outside.
Fog. It rolls through the forest without fear, taking the shape of all that once was and will be as it continues its journey without guilt or greed. You are now thoughtlessly stumbling out into it and begging for answers until your throat runs hoarse and your voice cracks in the same way as your fractured heart. The fog has no reply, instead brushing along your cheeks like a gentle caress, a quiet assurance that perhaps things are different, but that doesn't mean that they cannot be okay. You apologise to the shadows for your reckless intrusion; they appear less foreboding when you greet them with kindness.
All at once the silence inside and around you snaps. An overwhelming roar of life fills your senses. Where once you were heavy you are now weightless. You glide like the fog, you whisper like the rustling leaves and you fill yourself up with the warmth of the sunlight. You are alive, and for the first time you are aware that everything else is too. You hear the world speaking in a million different languages, a million different lives living under your bare feet alone. The limbs of the trees now look less like skeletons and more like outstretched arms pointing to guide your way home. You wish you didn't have to leave so soon.
Last night you fell asleep in your own bed, cradled by the familiarity of the world which you built for yourself. This morning you awake to the same world. Nothing is different, nothing has changed.
Nothing except you.
Happy Earth Day!
x Erin
