Entered the World

Been a long time in this desert.
No idea how long.
Sun’s up all the time.
Sand everywhere.
There’s no water but I never get thirsty.
It isn’t hot, just bright.
I sleep on my stomach with my arms around my face to block the sun from my eyes.
Haven’t had to piss or shit since I got here.
That’s one silver lining.

My hair is still growing despite not having eaten anything.
Not a whole lot yet but maybe three inches. I’m guessing.
I don't have a lot to do with my time now but run my fingers through my hair.
You know, I haven't once noticed a strand coming out.

I have a beard now.
Never tried to grow one.
Don’t like them on anybody.
Now I've got one myself,

Can’t even see how I look with it.
No mirrors here. Nothing but sand.

I always would have imagined that being in a situation like this, I'd lose my mind pretty quickly.
I'm a sociable guy.
I don't mind spending the night alone, and that's how it usually goes.
But if it's up to me, I don't let a single day pass in solitude.
Everyone I meet is my friend.
It wouldn't do to just leave them hanging.
But since I got here, I guess it's just no problem.
I am so content, with nothing and no one.

I figure this is either a dream or I died and went to heaven.
They say hell is for other people.
I guess that's where everybody else is.

I can't tell you a lot about myself because what I knew about myself is just not true anymore.
I'm not 30 years old anymore. I'm 30+𝑥.
About my mother and father?
For all intents and purposes I haven't got any.
If I did, where would they be?
Am I even a man now?
I've got a dick that won't piss and there are no women here.
Not even any animals.
So I'd be a man as opposed to what exactly?

I'm not sand.
That's it.
I'd still say I'm a person.
I feel like what I think a person is.
That might not mean anything, now, though.

Am I dead?
I don't eat or drink, or do anything, so my behavior isn't far off the mark.
But, no, I'm sure that I'm alive.

Something interesting about being here is that I can remember everything.
Everything that's ever happened to me.
Including all this time looking at sand.
Every moment, crystal clear.
Most of the painful stuff from before is still unpleasant, but it's a lot easier.
Most of it.

Something else that's interesting is that my thoughts are written out in front of my eyes.
I really thought they were floating in the air at first.
That's what it looks like.
But I put my finger right up against my eye one time and the words were unaffected.
So I guess they really do just exist in my mind.
They sure look real.
Rubbed some sand into my eye, too, and I didn't feel a thing.

•••

It's been some time since this woman appeared.
Woman? Girl?
How did she think of herself before she got here?

I know I let go of ideas like those when I arrived.
Who I was, who I am.
But now I can't remember what some of them were.
Does she still have her ideas of herself?

My age... something plus 𝑥.
I'd guess she's right around the age of something, too.
Plus the ever increasing 𝑥.

We don't speak the same language.
We gave up quickly on trying to teach each other words.
Nothing to talk about.
No basis for communication.
Damn near nothing to point at.

I taught her how to sleep with her face on the ground.
Great student.
Nailed it on the first attempt.

Nothing to do but fuck.

We got right down to it.
I think I lost interest in fucking during all the time I was here alone.
But she acts differently than I did.
Even now that what seems like a lot of time has passed.
She's always a little restless.
Now and then, I catch it, too.
"What's over there?"
Nothing. How did I forget?
But she won't stop looking around.
Thinking something's gonna change.
Nothing to look at but the grass and the rabbits.
They fuck all the time, too.
I'm not sure they were here when I showed up.

The woman isn't kind or unkind.
There's nothing for either of us to act kindly or unkindly about.
I feel like I might have avoided her before I got here.
Not really sure.
I never had a “type” but she's ugly as shit.
She's got a sweet smile, but I always thought everybody had one of those.
I think.

Fucking feels a lot different than I remember it ought to.
Real light, like running your finger over your arm.
We never finish, we just stop when one of us has to pee.

•••

The next guy to show up tried to catch a rabbit.
Now, what would he go and do that for?
They're impossible to catch.
We just eat the fruit that grows out of the ground.
He says it leaves him feeling hungry.
Well, I've been here forever and that’s all I ever ate.
He and I speak the same language.
Now the woman is picking it up, too.
Just a little.

Doesn't seem fair.
She's going to all that extra trouble when we still have no way of learning her words.
Except for the names of things in our surroundings.
We can only learn the words for things she can point at.
Doesn't seem fair that we can't fuck when we want now that this new guy is here.
We sneak off when he's sleeping.
Fucking feels better than it used to.
More friction.
Now I want it as bad as she does.

When I sleep, I dream of sand and words in front of my face.
I'm sure I used to dream about better things than that.

This new guy talks about where he came from.
It seems unbelievable.
"New York" has a nice ring to it but I sometimes wonder if he's making things up.
Like when I'm off with the woman, he's dreaming about “New York” and he wants it to be real.
He says:
"We've gotta get out of here."
What does he think that means, exactly?

He asked why my clothes haven't worn out.
Why would clothes ever wear out?
Why would anything?

Rabbits come and sit on my lap.
I put them up on top of my head sometimes.
It seems to be exciting for them.
I never get excited, myself, but it's nice to see.
The idea of being excited is something I remember, somehow.
When this guy sees me sitting with a rabbit, he gets mad.
The woman laughs.
This seems awfully familiar, like I've seen it play out with other people and other rabbits.
It's sad to think of other rabbits, living in opposition to these rabbits right here.

•••

Green rabbits, blue rabbits, red rabbits, yellow rabbits.
When the kids got here, we couldn't understand each other, but their language felt familiar.
Similar to how people talk in New York and wherever I'm from.
The other guy tried to teach them our words right away.
That was fine.
But I couldn't understand his fixation on differences.
A kid will know which rabbit they're looking at.
Why call it a red rabbit, or a blue one?
It’s the rabbit you’re looking at.
There's nothing to say about rabbits.
There's nothing to say about the kids.
There are four of them and they're no problem at all.
They climb trees and rocks and they play in the river.
Same as I did when I got here.
They don't look alike, but we don't use names for them or anything.
Maybe they use names amongst themselves.
The other guy said we should name the kids and I got mad.
I was surprised how mad I got.
Sometimes he said we needed to teach them how to become adults.
I think I told him the same thing every single time:
"Leave them alone. They're not becoming anything."

•••

The woman and I were getting old.
We took turns helping each other to walk when one of us felt too much pain.
It was too much trouble to fuck anymore.
We'd just find somewhere off by ourselves and play with each other.
One time, she couldn’t stand back up.
The guy from New York laughed.

•••

More people came.
Some alone and some together.
At night, we'd come together and sleep by a fire.
The air cooled down at night.
I'd dream about the sand, and the bright sun, and all that time I spent alone.
Where did I ever get ideas like those?
In some places, there is enough space between the trees that you can see the sky.
Can you imagine if it was just wide open, with the sun never moving?
Dreams are strange.

One woman who came here was pregnant.
She just stayed that way.
We tried to make her life easy.

Two of us, a man and a woman who spoke a language none one else understood, had a baby.
I told the pregnant woman:
"Life just can't be fair all the time."
She’s still pregnant today.
The couple's baby is a little girl now.
Has been for a long time.
She can talk to everybody.
She tells me things about my woman that I never knew.
Wonderful things.
I wish I'd known her better all along.

I shouldn't say "my woman."
But I'm her man.
She says so, so I guess it's alright.

•••

One boy who came here reminds me of myself.
I don't understand it, but he does.
I call him "my boy."
We sit in my house for hours.
He remembers the strangest things.
Talks about eating food that somebody else made for him.
Somebody he never met, making all his food.
We all pick our own fruit.
We make our own rabbit soup.
Blue rabbit scratched me up the other day.
Happens all the time.
Always the blue ones.

My boy tells me about his old life, and his old problems.
His family, a school, studying English, a girl he loved.
He talks about working my ass off.
I tell him there's nothing to worry about now.
"Don't worry anymore. All that's behind you."

•••

I died in that house.
My woman was there.
My boy was there.
Last thing I told my boy was:
"This is your mother. I want you to look after her. And be good to all the others, too."
And I also said:
“Son, you find a way and kill that motherfucker from New York. He's given me nothing but shit."