Catamite
01-23-2012, 07:23 PM
This is a dumb story I wrote. It's German title means, 'the feeling of being alone in the woods'.
It is as if he travel’s each day to an empty battle field where there should be war. In the morning he begins anew having forgotten everything. His fatigue builds, so each day of travel is made longer and more strenuous; signs of this colour to the surface of his skin in purple blotches. In small waves he remembers this or that of journeys before, but he afterwards to himself says, ‘No, no, no – nonsense. It is just the mind playing tricks yes, all trees look alike, so how could I know the difference? And even if I did, I haven’t been here before.’
The path is never too long nor too hazardous for him not to reach its end; even as he faces the blank slab of the day, and in bed lies – saying, ‘just another five minutes I will take’, and then ‘only until the next whole number’ and then ‘I will finish out the hour, otherwise the time was wasted’ – he eventually heaves himself up, knowing that he must work out the day, so that time may continue in renitence. The tea he makes becalms him, with it he recovers from his lie-in. He dresses routinely. The sky is out before him like some weary, flaky animal waiting to be shot; the wind is seething in frost, and curls frantically through any gap in clothing to extricate resisting warmth. There are no singing birds, nor stalking beasts – but rushing, condensed as in a tin can, swaying this way and that, and clutching to one thing to avoid another, it is not a pleasant journey. There are many types of tree, he says, ‘Well now, that there is what I call the ‘old timid man’, mark him by the dry, frail bark and limpid boughs, and there – oh, but I’m talking to myself. I used to do that so much, there was one time, on a trip to the war – a fine war it was, bloody and noble – I talked to myself the whole way! I could hardly believe it...’
To a river he might come, and cradle his fingers to scoop a little water. The effort involved was in fact costly, but water is the way of the war he thought, and there is nothing like proper water, from the river; better any flask one could carry with them, it is natural, it is better, the cost is worth it. The water gave him a sense of belonging. He knew that by its course, he was moving in the right direction, and was come to his purpose soon.
As he became firm, despite the frantic noise of the wood, in a silence, there seemed a greater purpose to everything. He checked his watch, the time told him nothing to know for the journey, but that all was fine. The heat had tired him a little; his legs lagged, his chest puffed, even his arms resisted in swinging. But as he knew, all on sight of the battlefield would be repaid; fatigue could be accrued without payment of rest demanded. As out he stepped from heavy shade to walk under an open sky, he saw the grey of the sky had been lost to blue, silken patches of cloud rolled upon another. He walked on, almost checking himself for blood with the smoothing of his clothes. At a turn he saw a creak in the otherwise thick woodlands. This was it, all could be put aside now, he could join the procession, and he could be amongst the war. It was but fifty strides away. The relief that would come abated all tensions; He now ran to make it, his heavy clothing now came with him as if its weight too had abated. The creak had widened with his approach; and what it had to offer was shown in fuller glory, he saw plain openness which he was sure would change upon entering. Although nervous, he waited, like for a glass rolling to the end of table to fall and crack. As he entered, crashing through, he took to draw a sword but at his waist but there was none, and as he now saw this he realised he had not carried one, nor ever held one.
The mass of shadowed grass was shadowed grass only; he trailed patches of it for stained blood, or the wetness that had washed the stains, but it had not appeared to rain. The clouds were light and white in the sky.
Alone for the first time, he could scream, he could run, he could strip. He didn’t want the battle anyway; all the blood and the clanging swords. It was too messy, it was too much. All the men reduced to one sole hunger. The vainglorious men still charging, and those humbled men dying - the weird heaps of dead. He lay naked on the open plain; he let his hands fall about his body and grass. At noticing the blotches, he sprung up, and examined his body feeling with each touch the particular malady and its pain. Each pain seized its chance to be attended to. Eventually he shut his eyes and brought his hands from it all. To dress again, he had to slowly coax his arms back through sleeves, and his legs through holes. He was unsure of what to do, tomorrow there was something terribly urgent to do, and so before night he had to return again. As he tried to rise each pain halted him, each pain seizing the chance for attention again. He began to crawl; the grass had become prickly, the air colder then even in the morning, the openness of the plain more vast. He passed out still far from the exit. For a day he slept, and when woken by hunger crawled only to scattered fruit upon a tree and some water, which though unclean, he drank earnestly. He did little in the following days but mechanically stretch his limbs in patience for the pain to pass, and devour what little food he could find. He did however, try furtively, to remember what point of the war had been, and to who his was allegiance was. His limbs gradually began to heal, the blotches faded cautiously from his skin. When he returned home he forgot about the battle, but kept receiving calls for it afterwards; he did not go, except once, on a whim – there was nothing.
It is as if he travel’s each day to an empty battle field where there should be war. In the morning he begins anew having forgotten everything. His fatigue builds, so each day of travel is made longer and more strenuous; signs of this colour to the surface of his skin in purple blotches. In small waves he remembers this or that of journeys before, but he afterwards to himself says, ‘No, no, no – nonsense. It is just the mind playing tricks yes, all trees look alike, so how could I know the difference? And even if I did, I haven’t been here before.’
The path is never too long nor too hazardous for him not to reach its end; even as he faces the blank slab of the day, and in bed lies – saying, ‘just another five minutes I will take’, and then ‘only until the next whole number’ and then ‘I will finish out the hour, otherwise the time was wasted’ – he eventually heaves himself up, knowing that he must work out the day, so that time may continue in renitence. The tea he makes becalms him, with it he recovers from his lie-in. He dresses routinely. The sky is out before him like some weary, flaky animal waiting to be shot; the wind is seething in frost, and curls frantically through any gap in clothing to extricate resisting warmth. There are no singing birds, nor stalking beasts – but rushing, condensed as in a tin can, swaying this way and that, and clutching to one thing to avoid another, it is not a pleasant journey. There are many types of tree, he says, ‘Well now, that there is what I call the ‘old timid man’, mark him by the dry, frail bark and limpid boughs, and there – oh, but I’m talking to myself. I used to do that so much, there was one time, on a trip to the war – a fine war it was, bloody and noble – I talked to myself the whole way! I could hardly believe it...’
To a river he might come, and cradle his fingers to scoop a little water. The effort involved was in fact costly, but water is the way of the war he thought, and there is nothing like proper water, from the river; better any flask one could carry with them, it is natural, it is better, the cost is worth it. The water gave him a sense of belonging. He knew that by its course, he was moving in the right direction, and was come to his purpose soon.
As he became firm, despite the frantic noise of the wood, in a silence, there seemed a greater purpose to everything. He checked his watch, the time told him nothing to know for the journey, but that all was fine. The heat had tired him a little; his legs lagged, his chest puffed, even his arms resisted in swinging. But as he knew, all on sight of the battlefield would be repaid; fatigue could be accrued without payment of rest demanded. As out he stepped from heavy shade to walk under an open sky, he saw the grey of the sky had been lost to blue, silken patches of cloud rolled upon another. He walked on, almost checking himself for blood with the smoothing of his clothes. At a turn he saw a creak in the otherwise thick woodlands. This was it, all could be put aside now, he could join the procession, and he could be amongst the war. It was but fifty strides away. The relief that would come abated all tensions; He now ran to make it, his heavy clothing now came with him as if its weight too had abated. The creak had widened with his approach; and what it had to offer was shown in fuller glory, he saw plain openness which he was sure would change upon entering. Although nervous, he waited, like for a glass rolling to the end of table to fall and crack. As he entered, crashing through, he took to draw a sword but at his waist but there was none, and as he now saw this he realised he had not carried one, nor ever held one.
The mass of shadowed grass was shadowed grass only; he trailed patches of it for stained blood, or the wetness that had washed the stains, but it had not appeared to rain. The clouds were light and white in the sky.
Alone for the first time, he could scream, he could run, he could strip. He didn’t want the battle anyway; all the blood and the clanging swords. It was too messy, it was too much. All the men reduced to one sole hunger. The vainglorious men still charging, and those humbled men dying - the weird heaps of dead. He lay naked on the open plain; he let his hands fall about his body and grass. At noticing the blotches, he sprung up, and examined his body feeling with each touch the particular malady and its pain. Each pain seized its chance to be attended to. Eventually he shut his eyes and brought his hands from it all. To dress again, he had to slowly coax his arms back through sleeves, and his legs through holes. He was unsure of what to do, tomorrow there was something terribly urgent to do, and so before night he had to return again. As he tried to rise each pain halted him, each pain seizing the chance for attention again. He began to crawl; the grass had become prickly, the air colder then even in the morning, the openness of the plain more vast. He passed out still far from the exit. For a day he slept, and when woken by hunger crawled only to scattered fruit upon a tree and some water, which though unclean, he drank earnestly. He did little in the following days but mechanically stretch his limbs in patience for the pain to pass, and devour what little food he could find. He did however, try furtively, to remember what point of the war had been, and to who his was allegiance was. His limbs gradually began to heal, the blotches faded cautiously from his skin. When he returned home he forgot about the battle, but kept receiving calls for it afterwards; he did not go, except once, on a whim – there was nothing.