The head shakes, lifts itself up and waits for the fog to lift before heading inward to find what corner the mind has wandered off to.

The eyes gaze lazily out the window, outside the breeze frolics amongst the tall grass; a small whine crawls through the panes – perhaps the low cry of the rustling stalks as they wave goodbye to their transient companion.

A yawn, the mind begins to stir after dozing off in some cool, dark region of thought – though, now the mind can’t recognize any of the thoughts that surround it and shrugs them off to fall into the chasms of the body’s memories.

A knock

Not a physical audible knock, but the body starts, rushes to the door and opens it outside to the emptiness therein. One must make sure of these things. Not an audible physical knock, but one deep within the confines of the soul. Perhaps akin to a nagging thought, but gentler and more persistent.

KNOCK-KNOCK

Knock-knock

_knock-knock

Never goes away, but quiet enough that the ears can shut it out for years, perhaps decades before the mind takes notice. And now, it’s always there not always audible, but always there: in the slight, unexplainable arrhythmia in the lungs and the heart, in the muffled scratching somewhere in the depths of the mind, in the sense of urgency reflected in a pair of laughing eyes. The whole body can try to ignore the feeling after it gets noticed, but it’s like trying to ignore the rain pattering on your head.

The mind can meld itself with the rain, become comfortable with the water covering the body like a second layer of skin. Perhaps even grow accustomed and know the rhythm of the drops and eventually take a strange comfort in the constant wetness pouring down.

But this knocking is different. Perhaps a mind could find an odd comfort in it, but the mind doesn’t comprehend the knocking like it might the rain. Where does it come from? Why is it there? The pondering adds on to the muffled scratching in the darkness and as the mind attempts to make its way closer, the scratching rises in pitch. Raises in volume. Nails clawing frantically into a chalkboard.

The mind backs off, made uncomfortable by the search, worn down it drags itself into some corner and sleeps fitfully, with odd dreams of creation stories plaguing its rest.

The mind is at an impasse, but perhaps the body can do something. A journey? Yet there is no set destination. Just a meander through familiar territories, roads. All now empty, some run down, others locked up or away.

Familiar faces, scents, sounds, all gone. Pushed away by the indeterminate agony of the mind, or perhaps in disgust or boredom. But there is the knocking, always the knocking. A glimmer of hope, for company, answers, perhaps – just perhaps – a new beginning?

A journey continues.

How long has it been? The mind wonders to itself as the body begins to pack up the various traveling gear lying around the room. There has been no destination for the body’s arduous trek. Just the constant knocking at the door of the soul and an odd sense of fear and apprehension at the dark clouds and cold rains that chased behind the body.

A name? The mind could no longer remember, it had been too long on the road without another to remind itself of who and what it was. The body was just a shell of whatever former self it had been, and know something was knocking on the shell, calling it.

The hands had worked fast, the pack was collected, and the shell was ready to continue its trek to wherever it was the mind led it; it was the only thing left for it to do: move through the drudge of each day hoping for answers with every bend in the path the feet tread. As the hands close the wooden door behind the shell, the eyes gaze worriedly up at the sky in the direction the shell had come. The ears no longer heard the soft whine of the hinges, and only strained to hear the soft pattering of the rains that came with the darkness.

It had always been there, the darkness. Yet back in the days when there were others the darkness came rarely and never stayed long, and in an odd way, there was a relief to be found in the feeling of the cold dampness of the rains on the body, and a pleasure to have the contrast of the cold isolation of the dark where the mind could wander as it pleased and the warm embrace of the light. Thinking back, the mind decided that the darkness had begun hovering on the horizon when the others began to leave. The shell had not minded then, even as the houses emptied and silence crept slowly over everything, muffling out even the peaks and valleys of the emotions that had once filled the shell. The mind tried to comfort the shell, repeating that the others would come back, this was just a temporary change, all the shell had to do was wait and things would go back to the way they were before.

Then the rains came. Soft and gentle at first, a relief to the monotony that had plagued the shell for so long. Yet this time, they did not stop. The shell began to drown, wallow in the rain with no will to struggle free, the silence had muffled that out as well. The mind had struggled so hard to keep the shell going, day by day it told the shell: “it can’t last forever, this too shall pass, we must just persevere.” And the shell did just that, not quite alive, nor quite dead, it just was.

Then came the knocking.

So quiet and gentle at first, the mind barely noticed it. Slowly it got louder till the ears believed that it must be tangible and for the first time the shell moved with purpose. The legs ran and the heart beat faster than it had done for as long as the mind could remember. Something swelled inside the shell that had been stifled by the silence and the rains. With victorious joy, the hands threw open the front door. The mind shouted, ‘We have won!”

The mind expected to see the others back, expected the silence and the rains to have ended, expected to open the door to find that things had never changed. Expected a smiling familiar face, the sounds of cheerful laughter to be shared with the ears, smells of freshly cooked foods. Expected the return of an old life, where the shell had felt happy, comfortable, and most importantly – whole.

But all that greeted it was the grey blandness of the clouds, the rain, the silence, and most dejecting - the emptiness. The shell returned to the room where it had lay. The feeling it had mustered faded once again, and once again the mind went into a standby – get through today and the next and the next _{an the next, and the next ….. ad infinitum}

But the knocking did not go away, and the shell had stirred. The mind, spurned on to try and decipher its new companion drove the body to move, the legs to walk, the hands to pack. And as the others had done long ago, the shell moved on beyond the clouds and the rain, and the remnants of memories of a happy existence.

The eyes turned the other direction.

Beyond the see of tall grass that swayed before the shell, mountains rose dauntingly, jutting fiercely into the sky as if to impale the horizon. It was to these peaks that the shell moved. The mind of the shell knew not why it desired to climb the rough mountains, but it did. Swimming through the sea of tall grass, the shell moved forward – toward the peaks and away from the dark clouds that had loomed behind it for days.

Time passed, the shell knew this not by the movement of a celestial body, but by the rhythmic knocking on its soul. The sky was a monotone grey above where the shell now rested at the base of the mighty peaks. The sea of grass lay behind the shell, its body tired from the trek. In the distance, the clouds still loomed. Yet, somehow, they seemed to be moving at an ever-increasing pace the closer the shell got to the mountains. Perhaps, this was the end of its journey. Now if it could only manage to beat the storm. But first, the eyes, body, and legs of the shell cried in unison for much needed rest. Although the mind fought hard and tugged at the body to keep moving, the eyes drooped, the body creaked and ached, and the legs wobbled until the whole shell crumbled to the ground and the mind relented – a short rest was needed.

KNOCK

KNOCK

KNOCK

The body rose with a start, perhaps it was the knocking that had risen the shell, or perhaps the sudden chill as the shell found itself in the midst of a torrential downpour.

How long had the shell slept, the mind wondered. But it didn’t matter, it had been too long and now the darkness of the clouds had caught up with the shell. Frantically, the legs and the arms of the shell began to clamber up the rocky slope of the mountain. The exposed, wet rock cut into the shell’s flesh and the wind and water whipped at its back.

But the shell didn’t notice the cuts and bruises, and the wind sang tunes of a creeping terror chasing the shell and promises of truth and answers awaiting the restless mind – just above the next slope. 

Higher the shell clambered, rushing toward and running from the unknown. Driven by the feeling that the unknown before it would be one of bright adventure and happier days, whereas the one behind was an unknown too familiar, one that reeked of a past dreadful loneliness and helplessness.

The body heaved, pain shot through the shell in burning agony as the body desperately tried to keep up with the mind’s frantic demands. The shell could not go back to the way things were, it must move forward, it must climb its way out of this solitary storm of its own means, its own blood and sweat, regardless of what harm came to it now, the prize was worth it and more.

The eyes opened as the shell heaved itself painfully onto a ledge, rolled onto its back and lay still for a moment.

Slowly, the head turned and the eyes gazed upon a great stone rolled before a cave as the soul heard a familiar sound ….

The shell moved cautiously to the stone, and the body leaned flat upon the cold damp surface of the stone. The wind had stopped its singing as if holding its breath in anticipation.

A faint, but frantic knocking was heard from the other side of the stone, and as the body laid its hands upon the smooth surface of the stone, the stone seemed to rumble, as if something from the other side was trying to roll it away, but was too weak to do so on its own.

The shell’s face turned into a smile, a feeling of calm and completeness washed over it, and it moved to push the stone with all the strength it could muster. Digging its heels into the rock of the ledge, the body strained as it hadn’t done before, every muscle and fiber of the shell’s being joining in at this attempt of freedom from the dreariness it was in, to the embracing warmth it could feel emanating from the other side of the stone. The shell heaved …

A pause.

Every muscle still tense, the body frozen in a moment in time as the muscles strained as the shell maintained a state of limbo – both pushing against the boulder and not, all at the same time.

Why was the boulder here? What could have possibly led something or someone to trap anything in these secluded mountains? Did the others come this way too, only to block of any sort of return with the boulder?

The questions whipped around the mind as the rain did the body. The mind sat, petrified and still as one last question appeared before it within the shell’s consciousness: was the knocking even real?

Memories swarmed through the flood gates and the muscles relaxed and the shell retreated from the rock in a state of shock and doubt. The mind remembered the disappointment and emptiness it had felt when the knocking had first come. Could it handle another? Worse yet, what if the knocking had never existed, or if it had what if really had meant nothing. The mind reeled. It could not possibly except the possibility that it itself had tricked, deceived itself into creating this journey, this struggle, this story all for a lie that it had desperately wanted to believe. Perhaps, doing so isn’t condemnable, but it does nothing to ease the empty heartache within the shell.

But the alternative, the thought that something had reached out all this way through possibly time and space was just as terrifying. A strange feeling of guilt and helplessness overtook the mind as the shell stepped back towards the ledge. It could not push the boulder aside, then it would have to face the truth either terribly awful and lonely, or blindingly beautiful and serene.

The eyes gazed across the horizon as the head turned, no matter how lonely and barren his place felt, it was something comfortable, familiar. The mind hastily tried to assure the quivering body of the shell, it could make this place its own it could get used to the coldness, the emptiness, it may not be the warm place the mind believed it once had been, but there was a strange comfort to it. The mind knew that the boulder and the cave behind made the shell uncomfortable, almost painfully so, and so in an instant, the mind lied to itself -told itself that the shell was better where it was

Then the eyes saw it

A writhing mass of regret, longing, and suppressed memories methodically oozing its way up the rocky slope, so close the eyes could make out the many orifices protruding like hungry mouths. Before the mind could react, the mass lunged for the shell and the shell madly lunged for the boulder.

Instead of the cool stone, all the shell felt was the dark, crushing peace of slumber.

The eyes open

The mind remembers the fading memory of a purpose, a drive. A comforting knocking at the soul.

The mind tries desperately to reach out and grasp it once again: the opportunity that a snide mocking voice far in the darkness says the mind let slip.

The mind searches, frantically, finally exhausting itself, straining itself to its very limits to hear once more that guiding sound.

But

Nothing

Came

A short by Woof!