What am I

I could feel the water running through my hair and down my back. It was not a torrent but it wasn’t a small stream either. It made my hair tickle between my shoulder blades.

My body felt strange and heavy, lifeless, like when your mind wakes up but your body is still asleep. It felt like if I tried to move, my body wouldn’t respond. So I lay there feeling the cold water run over me.

It was nice not to move. I liked the white noise of the running water in my ears as well. I liked the lack of stimuli.

When was the last time I was truly still? It felt like I had been running for a long time.

A memory of me running flashed across my mind. My body twitched in response to the near violent mental jolt.

Was that the last thing I was doing, running? There had been brown and green blurs as I ran through a wood. And there was red too but I didn’t know what that was. My gasping breath as well and icy cold on my face as wet leaves slapped at me. My limbs remembered the burn of the long chase, though they were cold and still now. The water around me seemed warm in comparison to the hazy place I had run from.

Then what had happened?

I couldn’t remember.

I half expected my eyes to stay closed but they opened like I wanted them too. I couldn’t really see much though. It was dark and the riverbed a foot or so beneath me was a featureless muddy brown.

I kept still, feeling the new sensation of seeing. Strange way of putting it, I know, but it felt different. My whole body felt different.

I concentrated on each limb. There was no discomfort, nothing seemed to be wrong. It was just different.

When I felt that my body would comply, I lifted my head and swung my legs to touch silt bed beneath. I crouched there for I don’t know how long, taking in the new sites around me.

It wasn’t as dark as I thought it was but I couldn’t tell if it was dusk or dawn. When I was running it was day, which made me think this was morning. It was misty on the river which curved smoothly away from me and disappeared behind the dense fauna that was everywhere. I looked up and saw a grey sky with a blush of red almost obscured by the green canopy that was hanging over the water.

I froze.

Had I heard that?

It was a snuffling noise mixed with squelching and snapping of mud and branches underfoot.

I slowly moved my head toward the sound, careful to keep my body still to keep from making a noise.

The sounds continued, getting closer and as they seemed to start to echo around the empty clearing with the river, the small deer carefully stepped out into the open.

Firstly I was surprised at the size of it; I imagined the noises to be coming from something entirely bigger. It was hard to imagine its dainty hooves breaking anything as it walked along.

Then there was the overwhelming feeling of warmth radiating from it. It was maybe 20 yards away but my right hand side seemed to feel its heat from where I crouched in the smooth flowing water. I could see its heat as well. In the cold morning air it rose from its tiny body in wisps of steam. My eyes followed it as it was caught by the sluggish breeze and drifted towards the river, mingling with the mist there.

It must have seen the tiny movement of my eyes as its head snapped round to see me for the first time. But it wasn’t as still as I was. Its breath came out in puffs from its wet nose and its side moved with its breathing and its heart beat.

I could hear its heart beat.

And it was gone, launching itself back into the forest, away from me. Involuntarily I raised my arm as if to beckon it back but I knew it was still running from me.

I dropped my arm back to the water with a splash and I realised that I knew what was wrong with my body.

I was in a river and had been for what I could only assume was most of the night. I should be numb and frozen but I didn’t feel that way. I could feel the cold of the water and the air but it did not freeze me.

Remembering the warm animal in the cold air I lifted my arm again and saw nothing rising from it. I gave off no steam to mingle with the mist, no heat at all.

“Finally, I thought you were never going to wake up.”