It all started when I jumped from the train right before it was about to cross the bridge. I can not explain why I felt like I had to jump, it was just an instinct. I am just glad that instinct had sense enough to get me to jump before the train went over the bridge that crossed the high canyon which at the bottom lay a small quiet river. I was also confused on why I felt so strongly to cross on this side of the bridge and not on the other. I was also fortunate that the train had slowed down from its usual cruising speed so that it could enter the upcoming rural town.
In any manner, here I was standing beside the gravel lined rail tracks, somewhere I knew not. It was early in the morning, only the light of the moon illuminated the forest that these tracks cut through. I had fled from the city and all of its confusion and materialism. The train yard where they loaded lumber for transportation was not far from my apartment in outskirts of the city. I had decided to just hop aboard one of the open rail cars and let the train take me where ever it went. I had been in that car for hours and had fallen asleep not long after the sun set. I had no idea where the train was headed or how far I had come.
I was free from everything, nothing to tie me down anymore. This place was peaceful, only the sounds of the night insects entered my ears. No more would I have to wake up early in the morning to sit my ass in front of a computer where I wasted away my day, never really learning anything only using the same old techniques that were perfected in the seventies. The city had made me angrier day after day. The smell of polluting automobiles, the utter stupidity of people I encountered all had a negative impact on my feeling for my former home. Never more did I want to go there, but where I could go from here I knew not.
I decided to just wander, hell I did not care anymore about things like death and injury. If I slipped and fell busting my head on a rock paralyzing my body I would actually enjoy it. It would be great to enjoy such an experience, to feel the pain of the cold as my body experience hypothermia, to see the animals gather near waiting for my death. But it was summer so I had nothing to worry about freezing. It was very warm here, I felt like I was being cradled in the arms of a loving mother. The warmth I felt was far beyond the physical sensation. I had never felt this way in the city, only negative energy hit me.
I crossed the rail tracks and walked straight ahead into the unknown. Even though I was now in a wooded area the light from the almost full moon showed me all that I needed to see. The foliage here was not dense and it seemed that these trees had a way of keeping competitive weeds and other undesirable plants from growing around them. The ground around the trees showed signs of plant life here and there but nothing like what should exist due to the overwhelming amount of sunlight that must hit the forest floor due to the lack of overbearing trees. These trees felt like they were more than just ordinary trees. I did not know what type they were, their foliage was not anything I recognized. They are probably a common tree but my ignorance in the face of horticulture kept me from placing a name to them.
In a few minutes I could no longer see the rail tracks form where I had come. I was walking down a gentle hill. It seems to me that the rail tracks are the apex of that slope. Every now and then as I walked down the hill I would look back at the tracks increasingly becoming distant and higher. They were the last reminder of what I had come from. I decided to go to the river which lay under the bridge, maybe I could drown myself and experience the feeling of water entering my lungs and slowly depriving my brain of oxygen. I had nothing else to do, I knew not how to live of the land or how to get to any sort of "civilization." Why was I out here? What had possessed me? Right now it seems that the only thing I could do would be to die.
I walked down the slope thinking of the various ways I could die. I thought about being mauled by grizzly bears. I imagined the feeling of their teeth biting into my body. I wondered how being thrown up against a tree by their awesome strength would feel. Would I bleed to death first from all the internal injury or would I suffer sufficient brain injury to cause it to stop wanting to work? Another fantasy of mine was to go to the bridge walk to the middle and dive off into the canyon. I imagined my body hitting the ground beside the river and feeling for a microsecond my bones pushed into my internal organs by the impact. But I would not go back to the bridge for something beckoned me to the river below.
I can not tell how long it took me to reach the river. It could have been an hour, maybe less, maybe more. There was no sense of time here, it seemed to not exist. Only the quiet of night existed here, the coming of morning seemed far away. I was content in my knowledge that I was probably the only human being here. I was probably the only human awake for miles and miles around. The walk to the bottom had not been tough but effortless, I felt like I had walked on pockets of air the whole way down.
The river was not very full, it took up a thin strip of movement between the two static, yellow river beds that encased it. The yellow sand on either side of the river showed no sign of foliage and was moist. A mighty river had roared through here at one time or another, but not tonight. Despite its moisture the bank was firm and took all of my weight without leaving more than a slight footprint. The moisture of the sand was only slightly above dryness. I bent over and picked up some sand, and ran it across my hand. The sand felt dry as I poured it onto the palm of my other hand. But when the sand hit the bank again it regained its moisture. I could almost see as if from a third person perspective the twinkle in my eye that occurred from this simple observation.
I walked to the edge of the water and looked into it's mystery. It was clear and I could see that the bottom was lined with rocks who were half buried in sand. It seems that they were at once completely covered by sand but the current had exposed them. I placed my hand into the river and felt a gentle tug, like that of a friendly nudge. The water was just a little bit cooler than the surrounding air. It cooled my hand as I let it move around in the clear wonder. But the cooling was not a depleting cooling, it seemed only too cool enough to satisfy my slight hotness.
I decided that this was the time to enter the water, to feel its love it entered my life organs. I unclothed my self and threw my jeans, t-shirt and sports shoe into a pile away from the river edge. I stood there right on the water's edge nude and saw a slight shadow cast by the moonlight of my body upon the river. Slowly I entered the water, wading into deeper and deeper water. I felt both cooled and warmed at once by the water. I was firmly planted, the current was not strong enough to even move me an inch. As I reached the middle of the river I found that the water only reached to slightly below my shoulders. This gave me sufficient room to drown but was not the overwhelming depth I had been hoping for.
I was about to go under and experience the unknown when I heard a small splash of water, hardly even noticeable. I turned in the direction upstream and saw a beautiful brown haired woman swimming towards me. She like I was also nude. I was astonished like her beauty and could swear that I was a faint glow around her head. I wondered how I had not noticed her. The river was rather straight at this part and it would have been hard not to have seen another figure standing out against the yellow banks. This question did not matter me any. I did no care how she had gotten there. Despite the fact another human was coming towards me, I still felt peaceful.
When she arrived she did say not anything. She stopped about a foot from me and looked into my eyes with an intensity that made my inner self churn. She smiled as I looked back into her eyes sensing an overwhelming radiance. She then took both my hands and pulled me towards her. She embraced me and I felt the warmth of her body. I felt ever curve that had been so sexual to me previously but now it was more than just sexually, I could not explain the way her body made me feel.
As she embraced me I noticed that I what was me was melting away. Our bodies were no longer touching but rather were becoming once. I felt it slowly as she pressed into me. After awhile there was no sense of pressure on the front of my body, all I could feel now was her arms around by back but I could also feel my arms around her back. We had one skin now. Soon there was only one torso and then our legs became one. We placed our hands against each other's hands and pressed and soon there were only two arms. And then as we kept starting into each other's eyes we pressed out foreheads together. Soon there was only one head. Soon there was only one us.
Then we climbed out of the river and stood upon the banks. I was fully aware of myself. I was also aware of her, she was there too. I could feel everything from the new body as if it were my own. Everything the body did was something I wanted to happen. I was in complete control yet it seemed that so was she, but there was no difference in our will. Our desires and needs were one, we acted as one but existed as two. The new body was feminine, an utter triumph in womanly beauty. The curves I looked down upon were so alluring and filled my heart with desire. We looked at the moon, it was no longer just a little towards being full. The moon was now a perfect circle in the sky, directly over us it shined warmth.
As we stared at the only celestial body that gave warmth that I have ever been able too look into, I felt our body melt away. We sank into the sands but not as if we were being buried. We lost corporal being slowly as the body melted into the moist banks. I caught a last brief glimpse of the moon as our head melted away completing the merging. Then I felt like I was somewhere else. Even though there was no sense of vision I felt like I was upon one of the hills that lead to the river. I was under the ground in an open spot and knew that the ground was above me. Then I move beyond the ground and climbed out into the air once again. It was not with a human body that I climbed, but with that of bark and leaves. I grew into a fully grown tree on that hill. Once I had stopped growing my vision was restored. Now I could see everything that was relevant. I could see the tracks, the bridge, the river and all the trees that lined the hills leading to the river. I could see all of these at once. I noticed that the woman was no longer the only one around me, now there were countless others. With this I smiled in a way that has no physical significance, and this way I stayed.