WALK, THE

Midday I awoke, or at least I think it was midday, judging by the
sun, glaring down furiously from directly above me, my naked body was
burning up, and my mouth was so dry, it had sealed itself shut. I had
been lying on a bed of wild flowers, in a clearing in some woods. The
pain was unbearable, I wanted to scream but I couldn't, I could only
moan, but God did I moan.

Hours passed bye, each hour felt like a day as I tried to regain my
strength and stand on my feet, I had, since first awakening, managed to
crawl to a nearby tree to shelter from the sun's glare. Tree ants were
crawling all over me, stopping them was an impossibly futile thing to
try, as there were so many of them, I did try at first, but I was
fighting a loosing battle with my own paranoid delusion of being eaten
to the bone by thousands of army ants. In trying to get rid of the ants
I wasted all of my energy which I had been restoring while I
rested.

Hunger set in and the thought of eating the ants became appealing to
me, but my mouth was still sealed up and all I could do was sit there
contemplating my own death. Feeling the ants crawling all over my body,
imagining maggots crawling in and out of my skin, I could picture them
inside my foreskin, eating out my armpits. Irritating all of my
sensual, ticklish parts, driving my mind into a wild frustration,
forcing sorrowful tears to roll down my cheeks and pitiful sobbing,
like a child weeping for a lost toy. The tears slowly trickled down to
my lips, the salt burned where I had opened the flesh to the world, and
I realised that it was dried blood that had sealed my lips together,
the small amount of moisture allowed them to unseal a little, though
not too much, they remained adamant about staying shut, it cheered me
up slightly, knowing that I could at least eat something.

I had exchanged my bed of wild flowers for a new bed of bracken, and
when I ran my fingers along it's leaves I felt the moisture running
onto my hand, it had rained whilst I had slept, not very heavily but
the floor of the woods were still wet, I rubbed my wet hands gently
around my mouth. Clearing away some of the dried blood, running my
hands through the leaves getting my mouth wetter and wetter until
eventually I could open it. I gave out a great sigh, and tried to smile
finding my cheeks could curl a little but my lips hurt like hell. I
found some wild strawberries growing nearby, and I soon began to yearn
for something bigger and more filling, but it was starting to get late
and it was getting dark fast, so the urge to sleep took over my bodies
instinct of eating and drinking.

I awoke again, assuming it to be midday but this day my mouth opened
easily and I still had strength enough to move, raising to my feet I
had a good look around taking in the scenery trying to remember how I
got there and wondering why I was naked, but thinking about this only
gave me a headache. I was on the edge of the woods close to a clearing,
the one, which I had first woken up in, the day before. The clearing
was filled with bluebells and other wild flowers and the floor seamed
to move as I could see the ants carrying leaves and branches. They
didn't bother me any more; I knew they wouldn't be chomping away at me
with there tiny little jaws.

I noticed that I was on the slope of a hill, and looking down, I was
sure I could see a road behind a line of trees, my surroundings all
seamed vaguely familiar, but it was still unclear where I was or how I
had got there. I was able to make my way down the slope of the hill,
through the trees to the road; it wasn't a very wide road, just enough
width to allow 2 cars to pass carefully. Just one car would have been
nice to see, not that anyone would stop for a naked man stumbling along
the road almost deliriously. I didn't know which direction I was
walking, in fact I don't remember actually setting off, but I just did.
I could hear water running close to me, somewhere behind a 5ft wall
that seamed to grow larger whenever I tried to climb it. After a while,
the road ended at a T-junction, it was there that I realised where I
was. Looking up I read a signpost that read `MILLOM 7 miles' I knew
where I was, but I still didn't know how I got there.

Cont&;#8230;