"The Journey"

The Journey

I looked around, potato chips bag, empty soda can, a
beer bottle sitting next to my computer.

Soft Sunlight coming through the nearby window.

My aquarium bubbling silently in the corner.

I turned and walked out.

It was like floating, out onto the walk in front of my building. The street with passing cars and people walking, no noise, soundless.

I turned in that direction. I went.

Followed the street, the curbs, lights, garbage cans. A dog. Power lines, all passed soundlessly as I went.

Out onto the highway. Passing cars and trucks, riders on motorcycles-I was going so fast in slow motion. I could see the texture of the road-the bumps of the pavement under the yellow stripes.

I turned that way following a lesser road-two lanes and a single dotted line. Passing between cliffs where the road cut through the mountains.

Cliffs and rocks passing by in a blur, veins of crystals and lines of dark against the lighter out croppings, weeds and trees jutting from their tenuous holds.

Everything opened, green, grassy plains spread before as the mountains fell away into dark shapes on the horizon.

I went onto a packed gravel road that soon ended into a dirt road. Following the path before me, the dirt road became a two track becoming less discernible with weeds growing in the middle and thicker on the sides. It faded becoming a grassy field.

I continued, wildflowers blurred past but seeing each individual petal, passing, scrub trees, rocks...towards a white mountain.

I began to rise followng the mountain into the sky.

I kept going at that angle following a new path through the air, passing through clouds, the atmosphere. The air thinned and I took a last breath as the blackness of space opened before me.

Then I went...