Animate

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Its flame however, failed to waiver alongside the breeze. And the man who dwelled inside, if you looked closely enough, appeared not to breathe.

Whether or not he is dead or alive is not a question that can be simply answered. Nor is he something in between, as we may consider one on the verge of death. For something to be dead, it must first be alive. And how could any such as him ever have been?

The man in question seems normal enough. Through his own perspective at least. And had there been others around him, perhaps they would have thought so as well. But there were not, as there were no others like him.

Although to him, that candle waivered to and fro as any candle does, the wind that affected it in reality would be strong enough to put it out. And in all actuality, it didn’t waiver at all.

Stan rested easily that night. As usual, he left the candle in his window lit, not remembering why he never put it out before bed. He wasn’t afraid of the dark, in fact, the light seemed to interrupt his falling asleep. Had he dug deep into his memories, he might find that he had always had that candle lit. Yet his memories were a place he rarely ventured.

The next morning began like any other. Stan had found a simple routine and lived by it every day of his life. It seemed the simple life suited him best, and with that, he had no qualms. Has he ever tried anything but simple? Ask him and his reply would be “surely”, though he would find himself unable to recall such a time.

Stan breezed past his morning routines and found himself, like any other day, on the dock, fishing for lunch. Unlike any other day however, he found himself interrupted. His fishing line had been cast, and in waiting for a trout, before the float had set under the water, the line slid into the clear blue pond. The float whisked itself away into the open water, like a bottle drifting out to sea. There was no fish pulling on the line. It was as if the air itself had snipped the nylon wire.

There were no spare lines. In fact, there was no spare equipment of any kind. Stan had fished every day with the same pole, same hook, and same wire. This seemed to be the first time such a thing had happened. Lunch was still to be had in the fridge, so Stan, without worry and with little to fuss about, made his way back home, only a short walk away.

Reaching into the cabinets and refrigerator, he realized that he was in desperate need of restocking. It seemed that he only ate the same few things every day, and with the fish out of the picture, he would definitely need more, less he would go hungry. So with food and fishing equipment in mind, he set out to the store. Living as simply as he did, not having a car, he began to walk down the dirt road that led away from the cabin.

Although it was a nice day for a walk, Stan found himself disliking it. The further he got from his home, the more uncomfortable he began to feel. His legs became increasingly heavy, wanting to turn back. Now why would that be? All he was doing was restocking supplies.

He stopped in his tracks. What seemed to be an epiphany had struck him. When was the last time he had been to the store?

Without time to look further into the matter, he felt a strong and sudden blast of wind pushing him back the way he came. The air was hot and smelled rancid, some indescribable smell he hadn’t experienced before rushed up through his nostrils. The gust was short, but powerful enough to push Stan onto the rooted ground of the woods, yards from where he was standing.

For what seemed like the first time he could remember, he felt a feeling other than peace, he felt fear. But even more so, he felt confused.

He ran towards his house, faster than he had ever moved before. Slamming the door shut, he laid his back against it as if there was some savage beast he was keeping out. There was no sound beyond his heavy breathing. There was no wind to be heard. No birds singing. Were there ever?

“Now wait just a minute”

Hearing his own voice, he realized how little he spoke. Had there been someone else to talk to, perhaps he would hear his voice more often. But there wasn’t another person. The deeper he dived into his memories, the more lacking he found them. It was as if he was all alone. Not just at this moment. But as though he had always been. He couldn’t even remember a time when he wasn’t. In fact, he can’t recall a face other than his own. In that case, how was it that he learned to speak? He had no memories of parents. Yet somehow, he knew that he must have had them, right? There were no childhood memories either. Just this cabin. Just that pond. Just the same rainbow trout on his grill every day.

He felt sick. But there were no doctors. He had never even been sick, had he?

“Rest. Oooooh, I just need some rest”

He lay down on that lonely bed, the same bed he laid in every single night. Unable to drift into sleep, he pondered about his missing life, becoming only more confused with each memory search coming up empty. Had he been here a day? Has he been here his whole life? How long is a lifetime? Are we… No… was he manifested into existence in this state, never to grow old? He recalled one memory, it seemed distant, yet as if it was yesterday. And it seemed that although he could swear that he had lived simply all these years in that cabin, that it was abandoned. Perhaps it was only yesterday that it was abandoned. Had he only been there one night?

He spent his time asking himself question after question, knowing that he had no answer to any of them. That there was nobody to answer his questions for him.

A speck of dust drifted slowly from the ceiling towards his open, distant eyes. Deep in thought, he hardly noticed the slow accumulation of particles in the air drifting from the ceiling until the ceiling shook violently and with it, grains of dust showered over him and his bed. He sat up quickly like he had awoken from a nightmare. The entire room shook. Then gravity began to fail.

He seemed to recall the notion of a dream of falling, but didn’t seem to ever have had a dream. However, Stan imagined that this is what that dream must have felt like. An ear splitting crack came from the roof as it began to slide off of the house. He found his footing as gravity seemed to set back in place, and made his way, staggering towards the door. As his hand approached the doorknob, the shaking stopped, and he looked up. The baby blue sky shown, limitless without the hindrance of a ceiling.

He turned the doorknob and slowly pulled the door, letting the outside light shine into the unlit room. The roof was nowhere to be seen. He advanced hesitantly away from the cabin, walking backwards and staring in dismay. The cabin wasn’t destroyed, there was only one simple change. It lacked a roof. He stared once more into the cloudless sky, seeing nothing, as hard as he searched.

Sitting down, Stan felt like his world had crumbled. Perhaps this is a dream, and there is some real life that he lives outside of it. Perhaps he has amnesia. Maybe it's God. Or is this just what the world is? Somehow he knew that he couldn’t run anywhere, and even seemed to come to terms with the notion that there would be some limit to as far as he could run. Not due to a lack of his own ability. But to a lack of world to run to. To run from.

So instead of running, he took a leisurely walk to the pond and sat on the dock, feet dipped in the crystal waters below. Is this even water? Wanting to inspect, he took a drink of the cool “water”. He couldn’t tell anymore. It seemed that everything was a trick. His furrowed brow reflected in the water. Gazing into his own eyes, looking for something that wasn’t there, his eyes searched the reflections of the small, wavering, pool. He had seen something move. Not in the water, but in the reflection. Something large.

He stood up and began searching the reflections in the water intently. Then he found it. Near the far side of the pond he saw an impossible reflection. Looking up into the sky, he saw nothing. Looking back down into the water, he saw an impossibly large pair of eyes turn its gaze towards him. He looked up again. Nothing. His heart raced faster than a jackrabbit, pushing blood too fast for his body to handle. He sat back down and peered into those eyes that peered at him. No. Not at him. They looked through him. Like he could be seen, but could not share a gaze. There was no eye contact. He felt like an object. The large face in the water smiled it's toothless smile. It was a child. A toddler in fact. As large as a mountain.

He could no longer handle that burning gaze and turned his head back towards the sky. Again searching for something that was impossible to see.

His back arched, struck by an invisible force that flung him into the water below. The entirety of his body screamed in pain as he tossed and turned, unable to find his way to the surface. Flailing aimlessly, he felt air on the tip of his fingers, and swam up.

He pulled himself out of the brisk water, back onto the dock. He no longer wondered about his origin. Questioned no more about the simple life he led. He now only found himself questioning if this would be the end of it. And all he felt was fear that it was.

Shivering, he ran from the pond in search of a place to hide. Just until this dream is over. Though running as fast as he could, he couldn’t make it to the forest. Both sides of his leg were pinched together, the meat ready to burst out of the skin. His leg raised above his head and the ground became further and further until he could see the entire landscape below, and with that…

He saw the edge.

Almost stretching out as far as he could see were the woods, the pond, and his cabin. But near the end, on each side of some square, there was nothing. The land ceased to exist, like the sky had consumed it. The cabin lay in the center. And he hung above it. He looked again into the lake, searching for that gaze, and found himself looking into a mirror. What was reflected was him, hanging in the sky. But not in thin air. There was a child, that behemoth of a child, holding Stan by the leg with its piercing and invincible fingers. It felt like his leg was stuck in a vice that kept tightening. Blood trickled down through his clothes onto his chin.

Stan tried to communicate with the being to no avail. He clearly could not be heard.

He looked in the reflection and saw the child using its other hand to grab something. Stan followed the reflection to where the child’s arm was, and saw a figure appear in the distance, floating through the air. As the reflected arm was brought closer to Stan, he was able to make out the figure. It was him. But it wasn’t. It was like looking at a video of himself. The figure was flailing and screaming, grabbing onto a leg that was being held by those invisible pincers. As it got closer, this new character looked at Stan with as much confusion as Stan felt, and he looked back with likely the same exact expression. The motion stopped and the two identical Stans looked at each other speechless, not knowing what would happen, what was happening, or why.

The second Stan began to emit a noise like a kettle that had heated its water. The sound merged with another sound of tearing and squelching. His legs moved quickly apart, revealing a red seam that started to split open, and before he knew it, Stan was looking inside of himself. His organs dropping to the land below. That ear splitting screaming had ceased, and the second stan began to fall.

Stan had an inkling of what would happen next, but was lucky to not suffer the same fate as his clone. He was simply released.

As he plummeted towards his cabin below, he closed his eyes and waited for the dream to end. Waiting to wake back up in his bed, sweating, heart racing, but relieved to once again feel safe and live his simple life once more.

His inanimate body fell onto the set with a quiet plink, eliciting the laughter of a small child who repeated the process.