"To Find What Has Been Lost"

A Short Story

(Preface: I must have written this story between 10th and 11th grade (2008-2009). It's old and definitely needs revision. I do like this one, though, very much. It uses an element I use in many of my short stories and perhaps even in coming novels. Because of heavy content I plan on posting currently and soon, I feel that this story has earned its place here and now. Enjoy.)

The ground was wet with dew and wherever it wasn’t it was with rain from the night that had lasted longer than any night he had ever experienced. Faint drips of precipitation from beyond the forest cover could be heard hitting the ground here and there, but never wherever he wandered. The humidity of this night was perhaps the worst part of his physical journey. His shoes were torn and soaked with sweat. His shirt was torn on one side and his pants ripped in places. Every muscle he could even think of ached. His head throbbed with an unbearable pounding, a musical beat that was in no way at all soothing. His hair was drenched with perspiration and rain from a long downpour that lasted hours of his night already traveled. His internal clock had broken sometime earlier in the night. Dawn awaited somewhere in the distance, but when or where, he did not know.
His memory failed him completely from all of the stress. The only thing that kept him moving was her face. His instincts guided his way. His thoughts traveled nowhere with him; however, his thoughts were concentrated solely on her face, her figure, her perfect silhouette that cast light upon his dreams of the day from lack of sleep, his obliged insomnia. Time was almost non-existent, but to say that it was would be a lie. Time was nor here nor there. Yet time was here and there at the same time, ironically. If anything came close to the pains caused by humidity, it was the emotional stress caused by time and the feeling it brought of hushed presence and boisterous absence.
When he saw her he wanted to run. When he saw her he wanted to cry. He wanted to smile. He saw himself run to her: he embraced her with a kiss and the sun began to rise from whence she came; every happy moment in his life flashed before his eyes making him lose all feeling of stress and discomfort from the forest’s entrapment.
When he saw her he couldn’t run. When he saw her he couldn’t even cry. He wanted to smile, but was unable. He saw himself run to her, but instead fell to his knees. He imagined a kiss, but there was no kiss to be had. Every happy moment in his life fled his mind making every feeling of stress and discomfort from the forest’s binding entrapment numb. A trick of the mind had her presence been. And it was then, while on his knees, that he realized the sun was rising behind him from whence he came.

by MFW III