J Says (Pt. 3)

    "Get up, you worthless piece of existence!" Awaking sheepishly from his slumber and obviously startled to the point of scrambling to his feet, the man begins to frantically turn around, managing to accomplish a complete 360. As he uncontrollably rubs the resulting residue of his night's slumber from his still weary eyes, the voice calls yet again. "Get it together. We've got to get going." Utterly confused because the man was sure that when he laid his head to rest on the sheet of dust beneath him, he was all alone in the world, just him and his own conscious thoughts that plagued him so. "A-a-a-alright, just let me grab my pack," he hesitantly responded to whoever was out there amidst the abyss. The rustling of leaves tickling his eardrums, he began to witness a figure bobbing closer and closer toward him. Fortunately, for the poor man’s sanity sake, he recognized the mysterious one who had startled him so, just moments prior. “I thought you guys had abandoned me for good?” the man questioned intently. “I just knew that I was going to rot here in this wilderness all alone. Where are the others?” Now the two men, once so close as a part of the same adventurous foresting team, meet face to face yet again, this time under a menacing set of different and slightly awkward circumstances. His afore mentioned confidant managed to gather himself first, in attempt to ease the escalating tension. “Uh, yeah. The rest of the fellas are up ahead, just past the creek. We expected you to find us, not the other way around.” Scratching his brow in confusion and noticeably peering down towards his feet, he began to wonder to himself. “Could I have been so exhausted, so starved, so in need of water, that I had it backwards all along? Did I, in fact, leave the group myself?” Nonetheless the weary traveler regained his composure and with the comfort of his reunited mate returning, he perched an estranged and foreign smile to his lips. “I’ve been so out of my mind these past couple days that I don’t even remember what happened anymore. I’m just glad to see that I haven’t completely lost you guys. Let me grab my bag, and we can go find the others.” As he bent downward and feebly grasped his pack with both quivering hands, an eerie wind came gently grazing across his body. Immediately frozen with an untimely sense of foreignness, the backpack released itself from his grip, falling to the dirt below. He sheepishly turned himself around, to see no one. Had his friend taken initiative and in haste, left without him? His mind seemed to be forming stronger and more off the wall opinions of its own as the journeyed labored on. He began to question his sanity, along with the sanctity of his own life. A dream perhaps… Yes, could it all have been a dream? -JSawyer