The rock under me is cold. The air is not. I am lying on my back. The air is sweltering, thick with humidity. The Insects swarm around my face, climbing into my nostrils. Sounds of running water in the distance. The swaying of leaves in the wind. The far-off cry of a shrieking animal. I haven’t opened my eyes yet. I’m afraid to.
I do not recall where I was before I waking. My memory is confused, a jumble of words, colors, images. I cannot recall my own name. This strangely doesn’t seem to bother me. It proceeds in this fashion now. I observe my own self-discovery. I am a being in transition. My past is a chrysalis. My memories are the shredded detritus spun by my former self. Whatever I am to become will have little need for this. What is still necessary is already within me. This article of faith binds my past to my present. It is my only true link to what I once was; what is still within me will be sufficient. it must be.
The silence is oppressive. Running water and wind whistling in the flora are among the only sounds. This is still silence. The diminishing instinct within me claws at the silence. It seeks the familiar. It wants for the sound of life as it is known. Where are the engines and the sirens? Where is the clatter and the clamor of human conversation? Where is the shock and the din of life as I know it? This is absent. Silence presents in its place.
Its dominion cannot be absolute. I must face it. I must accept it into my body. I must emerge into it. I am afraid. I am so afraid. I sense that this has always been the case. Now though, I hear the sounds through the thin membrane of my chrysalis. I feel the walls of my shroud contracting, withering as my moment of transcendence approaches. Silence beckons, warns, threatens, even as the withering veil withdraws.
I open my eyes.