Melt [part I]

She knew nothing would happen.  It was stupid really.  She was old enough to have a computer when the Y2K paranoia had gripped the world.  As soon as she heard about it she changed the date and time on her computer to 31 December 1999 and 11.59 and watched it tick over to the new millennium as if it was any one minute ticking over to any other minute.  She knew people were stupid and needed something to fear and let them have their fear, she does not need it.

It's a dark winter morning and she is feeling claustrophobic inside the house.  She knows it's cold outside but she wants to go for a walk.  Snow is not going to stop her and paranoia certainly isn't.  She puts on as many clothes as possible and steps out into the crunchy snow.  She loves this time of year, the quiet days of Christmas when everyone goes off to their families and leaves her with the gift of some peaceful solitude.  She can't help thinking about all those years, all those myths and all that anticipation leading up to right about now.  Some of her friends were obsessed with these myths and talked about them constantly so she couldn't help thinking about them herself.

As she walks she enjoys the quiet and the solitude and the effect it has on her.  She feels a peace and a nice balance between her thoughts and her simple observations of the frozen winter forest she calls home.  The world isn't going to Hell so fast because she is able to live in the city and take a walk through the forest only minutes from her apartment.  The world is certainly an increasingly weird place of course, that's undeniable.  She doesn't follow any media but her friends are always telling her about the new Abstract Economy desperately trying to maintain capitalism and Character Politics and its attempt to retain people's interest in politicians.  This latter has apparently resulted in the election of someone calling himself Jesus Christ as US President, who promises 1000 years of peace.

The craziness doesn't usually make it into the forest though, a bit of rubbish sometimes, but she can simply pick that up and put it somewhere more appropriate.  Most people come here to visit her cos they want what she wants for a little while; a bit of peace and sanity.  She loves her friends so she accepts that they come for temporary peace from these crazy lives and then for some reason want to return to their crazy lives after having a wonderful time here with her.  There is change here in the forest too, but it's a change that need not be understood.  It makes sense without needing to know anything about it.  It is chaotic, unpredictable, uncontrollable, and this is natural.  It is good.

Today is the day the world is supposed to end yet here in the forest it's just another perfect day.  The world is frozen, but life continues.

She steps off the path to where the trees are thicker and notices the snow has melted here.  She turns behind her and sees thick white snow covering everything and yet here in front of her it's melted and the ground is slushy and wet.  She trudges through the thick slosh of mud and dead leaves and pine needles.  She looks down at her feet at where she is walking and suddenly feels a direct warmth like a hot ray of sun breaking through directly onto the skin of her face.  She looks up and sees not the bright yellow light of the sun but some white dull light that is somehow unbearably intense and can't be looked at.  It's all white up there in the sky, overcast, and yet she can't be sure cos suddenly it's so bright she can't direct her gaze in that direction.  She can't look at the snow because this intense light reflects off that too.  The light even glares through the gaps in the trees.  It is so bright the trees seem to be melting.  They even bend over like soft candles.  Slightly disoriented she leans her hand against a tree trunk to steady herself; it is soft and her hand leaves a five-fingered indentation.

She is a calm person and doesn't panic, but she does not understand what is happening cos she can't even think about it.  It doesn't confuse her even because there is no reference point to reality or at least what she usually refers to as reality.  She continues to walk, neither looking at nor avoiding the intense light and unusual physical phenomena.  It is not just the mud and half-rotten vegetation that is mushy beneath her feet, everything seems to be getting softer, losing its density but not really changing form, just bending a bit.  This doesn't seem as unusual as it should and she laughs at the thought that it could easily be a dream.  "What difference does it make?" she wonders.  "If this is the reality I find myself in, what difference does it make if I call it a dream of a wake?"

Reality continues to melt and she continues to walk.  She considers her friend, the one constantly speculating with excitement about what would happen at the appointed time when everyone knew something would inevitably happen.  He had some good ideas and she told him many times to write a novel but he claimed he wouldn't be able to complete it and get it published in time and so there is no point.  She pulls apart two close trees like a curtain and he is standing in front of her smiling.  "I told you," he grinned.  "You never predicted this," she looks around.  They hug and their bodies coalesce without losing their own form.  They move in and out of each others' form with casual amused curiosity.  She sees her friend's skin seems to be glowing and he appears so much more beautiful to her than he ever has before.  She touches his face and feels a wave of intense love for him that feels like sadness but a good sadness.  The feeling is reflected in his face and they don't even need to smile at each other anymore.

She remembers that he is supposed to be on the other side of the planet, far away in some other country.  She doesn't know how he got here but can't even remember what country he's supposed to come from anyway.  She thinks she should know more, but can't even remember his name or how she knows him.  But she loves him so much and must've known him her whole life.  She can't imagine not knowing him.  Even the idea of her country and his country sound a bit silly and she wonders where she got this idea from.  The whole universe is here, it is them and this sphere of tangible environment around them.  Nothing else needs to exist and these types of thoughts start to fade anyway.

She notices the differentiation around her slowly disappearing.  The tree tops and the sky begin to look similar.  She can no longer tell the difference between snow and mud.  She looks at him and he seems to be observing the slow changes with the same detached curiosity as her.  They make eye contact and their silent expressionless faces communicate something.  It is like the bright white light is continuing to brighten but the glare is no longer harsh on the eyes and there is no associated heat, just a pleasant warmth, just like she is cozy in her warm winter clothes.  It's like she's drifting into sleep.