Short Short Story, "An Inmate Escapes the Asylum"

(Originally written July of 2012 "about" the feeling I had when the "52 Days of Magic" came upon me with its powerful, healing energy that broke me out of the many dark rabbit holes into which The Mushroom Path had led me very much for my own good)
"An Inmate Escapes the Asylum"

Short-Short Story by David Sky
He stands fingers enmeshed in the wire of the ten foot fence surrounding the asylum. On the outside now looking in, watching them play those games that they had always played in the outdoor courtyard full on summer now. Remorselessly. Soft grass so green, he notes, looking around as though for the first time at a park like setting surrounding the asylum, a line of trees demarcating the boundary of some as yet unexplored forest full of birds, of bird song. Promise. Feeling an easy breeze against his gaunt face, not merely looking at the many flowers blooming everywhere around him but seeing them with a sense of too-good-to-be-true mixed with deja vu.

Now, he thinks, I could not go back in there even if I wanted. They did not seem to see him standing there? He almost feels guilty but not quite. Such nonsense gone now like some ancient Phantasmagoric vision. He does feel sad, though. Deeply so. Whether or not this sadness is for himself on the outside here, or for them on the inside there, seems to him irrelevant - it would be a fools errand of the first order to parse that one, he thinks.

Perhaps all grief is everyone's grief? He wonders lightly. He is relieved, sure, but weary with it all.

Relaxing his grip on the fence and rolling his thin neck loosely and slowly. Sobbing softly now. But this, this pain, he marvels, this is what I am. This is mine. This is as real and honest as a hard days work. I here do not so much take responsibility for this pain, he whispers to no one, but ownership – no, more than ownership - this pain IS me. He long, thin frame sinks then his fingers dragging without resistance down the cold metal of the fence until his bony knees reach a comfort on the thick summer grass.

This is me. This is part of what I am - thank you, he whispers again, a newly reflexive “thank you tic”. Gratitude now such that it was much more than a word. He thinks back to when not so long ago for the very first time he had actually felt grateful for his food for which he gave thanks in word only before. He wonders if simply saying thanks had finally worn its way into genuine gratitude or if the gratitude had arisen like some grace of it's own accord? It felt like the kind of question that would characterize his life now? It must be grace for grace is upon him of this he is certain.

Even through the sobs that suddenly wrack him as if a attack from outside, a smile flowers upon his lips and gratitude slowly mixes with grief like two rivers he had looked down upon from high above when backpacking up the the Canadian Rockies, one a brilliant aqua marine, the other a deep muddy brown, the line where they initially meet definitive for a half a mile or so until finally mingling and merging into a greater, conjoined river and flowing on toward the distance Pacific ocean.

Gratitude and despair is the thing I am now, he affirms in himself.

Finally, he pulls himself up upon his weak legs giving thanks for this grace however it had come upon him and all too aware that he gives thanks to nothing, nothing at all, but feeling great heaping gobs of gratitude flowing freely up through the ground beneath his feet and wildly, wonderfully up through his body screaming out of the top of his head like banshees.

I think I'm still alive, he whispers cautiously, looking around beyond the compound now. With a hint of the unreality of it all that would become for him the Coma Dream Conundrum in the near future, he wonders a little vaguely if they do not take notice of him because he is merely a ghost? He doesn't waste too much time wondering because it doesn't seem to matter for now one way or the other.

He turns and walks away then knowing that what had started as a one day lark had transformed itself with spectacular subtlety into a full blown adventure in eternity. Thank you so much, he whispers to no one, to nothing at all. Perhaps just as any ghost might do? Gratitude that now always made him smile a huge, idiot grin that felt just like a great big, god damn hug empowered his weakened legs.

He knew that he is free and clear now - just free and clear. Feels a little like walking on air. Worn to the bone, weary from the effort, walking away into a bright summer landscape okay with this weariness that like the pain of it all IS him. So far as I can recall, he reminds himself significantly, no one had ever promised me that becoming real would be easy.