RISE

“He had a feeling all over his body that he didn’t recognize. How many feelings could he have recognized before anyway? He was in a dark but rustling place. He could perceive the sounds more or less, under that main sound (that sound, he knew was the only real sound, every other sound was an echo of it, a resemblance of it. He knew this instinctively, as ducklings know how to swim when they are born, clearly and without a doubt),

After the last letter of the command hit his soul and body, KAAALLLLKK KK KKK suddenly, the darkness vanished as his closed eyes opened. He began to see many trees, their branches, and the blue-clouded sky. A crown shyly peeking through the branches. Warmth began to slowly rush over his entire body, from head to toe. He moved his arms, as blood began to flow, cleansing the leaves, soil, stones and all other manner of things from his body. Just with his hands. Then, like a lever, he opened his arms and, as if throwing himself out of a grave or rather pulling himself out, he started to stand up. When the warmth completely engulfed his body and each limb came alive, he stood straight, as he was commanded. He had risen...

For a long time, he listened to his breath, his deep and calm inhale and exhale. He glanced at his hands, his dirty, soil-covered hands. He tried to reach every part of his body that he could see with these hands. He tapped his legs, pinched his buttocks, and pulled his hair. He was completely naked. Leaves, which had fallen from their branches, clung to some parts of his dirty, soil-covered body and to strands of his hair. His body began to feel a second warmth. When he turned his head and took a few steps toward the source of the rays of light, he had to close his eyes again. His eyes could almost see the source even through his eyelids; it was that bright. Slowly, as his eyes adjusted, he opened them and looked at the sun, one of the trillions. Then, he began to descend the slope from which he was, almost scrambling, stumbling and sliding.

The first oddity happened right then; he remembered clearly. He had a brain and mind that forgot nothing. As if he only had a complex subconscious, instead of a conscious. It was a complex with data processing skills and awareness in trillion units and a deep conscious where everything he experienced became apparent in that complex.

As he tried to move forward while leaning slightly, a wild blackberry branch scratched his right arm from top to bottom. A light thin line with a little blood appeared. He tasted the feeling called pain for the first time. He looked at his arm and the thorn of the blackberry branch in astonishment and slight annoyance. At that moment, an owl hooted from a den in the forest, beyond the slope he was descending. When the sound echoed and hit his ears, he turned his head in that direction and continued on his path. As he crossed an ice-cold stream, he bent down and sniffed the water, looked at his reflection, and was slightly surprised. Then, he moved his hands on his face again, as (blind) people run their hands over their faces to feel its contours. He touched his reflection, and when the image scattered, he completely submerged his hand into the icy water and took as much as he could into his palm, and drank. The coldness and taste were unbelievable. It was the first time he was tasting, and the first time he was drinking something. He dipped his face into the area where he saw his reflection and tried to breathe but icy cold water went down into his lungs. He didn’t understand what had happened; so, he had to hold his breath. Water can’t be breathed. Holding his breath, he dipped his head again and pulled back, filling his mouth completely. Then he swallowed the water. He wanted to drink more, instinctively. That instinct was called thirst, according to what he would later learn. A movie was being shown in the open air, just like one that you would watch with popcorn and soda. At that moment, he saw the desert and understood what thirst was when the camera focused on the main character’s cracked lips.

This time, he went out to the bank. He was completely chilled. Sitting on a rock, he filled his palms with water and drank to his heart’s content. It became like a source of life for him, like for a newly planted sapling. He waited on the hot stone to get warm, and then stood up and set off on his way. Passing under the tree where the owl had hooted and a little further, he came to the top of a hill. He crossed this slowly, too. And when he did, he saw a small cavity beneath a large rock. Night had begun to fall; involuntarily, for the first time, he yawned. His body was telling him what it needed through these types of actions, like the thirst he had felt. He nestled slightly in the cavity and curled into a fetal position, turning to his right, placing his right arm as a pillow. As his eyes closed, the last rays of the sun passed over the hill. He fell asleep. In his sleep, he heard the sound again, and again, he rose, experienced that day and many other things that hadn’t yet happened in a dream world. As this was happening, his body did not remain idle, and all his hormones began to secrete – growth hormones, immune system hormones, restorative hormones etc. These enzymes worked so well that his wound started healing quickly, eased the pain; which likely caused him to relive the same moment again in his dream. His wound, which normally wouldn’t heal for days, was completely healed in just a few hours; even more surprising, his skin adapted that night. His body worked in a different way and adapted him to many things, just as he’d learn much later as things that were perceived to be dangerous were not. For example, not even sharp, thorny branches could cut his body anymore as he walked through the forest. He wouldn’t feel that cold as easily anymore neither during cold nights nor as he passed icy springs, or he wouldn’t sweat so excessively as the sun danced on his head in the heat. As his body adapted to all these dangers, he was witnessing other things in his deep sleep and embarking on other adventures. There was one difference; He would never forget any of his dreams, the experiences he had would feel so realistic that when he woke from his first sleep, he’d have difficulty in distinguishing the real world.

He woke up 4 hours later. The pitch darkness of the night was partly lit up by the reflected light of a half moon. The moon was definitely not the hot ball of fire that he saw in the morning. It was bigger and colder. Like a big floating rock, reflecting light, reflecting on the surface of the stream. He was still a little affected by the things he had seen while sleeping. They are called dreams, a dream world that has no limits, the first woman had said to him without looking up from the magazine she had read, a long time later...

He sat quietly, watching the moon and listening to his surroundings. This relaxed and soothed him. The owl hooted heartily again, after having hunted a mouse while it was entering a barn to steal a few wheat grains. A howl came from an animal; who knows whether it was a jackal, or a wolf, or something completely different. The wind blew, raising all the leaves from the forest from the ground, making the trees play music, at every tune...

He stood up, stretched and yawned. He closed his mouth involuntarily, as if something would escape while he was yawning. Who knows, maybe in another realm, a being recklessly escaped into the gaping mouth of a dragon, who was a door keeper , and had caused a chain of complex events...

Then, small shadows, blacker than the darkness of night, that could not be penetrated by the moonlight began to cross over the hill he was on and rapidly approached. A few seconds later, he started hearing sounds, all different sorts... howls, screams, cries, anger, and other meaningless sounds. Somehow, he believed that these sounds came from those beings, those smoky, dark, fast-moving entities. The sounds were gradually becoming more intense and unsettling. He was startled, slightly astonished; not so much. After all, he had just arrived from a dream world. This situation did not seem so surprising to him. He said to himself “who knows, maybe those entities were related to the dream world, maybe they came out from there, too, like I did… they had woken up into this reality.”

As his brain tried to make sense of everything that was going on, the entities gathered in front of him in their full force, piled up one on top of each other, all shouting. Clearly, they were saying something but he did not understand. And in completely different languages. As these shadows became darker and began to grow, the sounds suddenly ceased. The shadows were flabbergasted and began to run back quickly. Like the waves slamming and crashing down the shore and going back into the ocean. This time it was as if the moonlight was piercing and dissolving these dark beings. The sounds ceased; the commotion ended. Again, a silence brought by the wind reigned over the hill and the forest from which the being had crossed.

He was just about to figure out the cause of this sudden tumult when he felt a strong warmth behind him, and a strong power. Glances piercing him and questioning him. He turned back to his right. There were 3 large beings standing on the rock he was on. They were more than 3 meters tall; white beings without shadows. They looked like old people. People are born, they grow and die, with their brains and bodies being in a different state in every stage; that’s what he had heard when a big artist had died; said in newspapers, books and the televisions.

These beings also started making sounds, clearer and more articulated rather than mixed noises. These beings were scanning the naked male child, who looked no older than 12, asking questions about where he came from, and trying to figure out what he wanted. They normally wouldn’t try to understand, instead, they’d just read their brain, learn of their intentions, immediately pulling all information they had. This child was a first for these beings at that ancient age. They could not read him, they could not get into his brain, and they could not extract any information. For them that long life that never ends seemed so very alienating. So, they started to ask the questions in every language they knew. Which was many and were various. What was his name, why was he naked. The child was just looking them in the face, with a deep staring look as if trying to make sense of it all just as he had done when looking at the other shadowed beings. He was neither scared, but only a bit confused. Normally almost every human being would panic, cry, lose their mind or their sense of composure. They were long-lived perhaps and certainly very strong, but they were definitely not intelligent, because they didn’t realize that this child had no past and was only one day old. Just like the grandpas who look on with an optimistic “let it be”, so were these ancient grandpa figures. One of them, who was a few centuries younger, placed a pair of clothes and shoes at his resting spot, before they parted ways. And, just like that, the moonlight eroded and vanished them, as they were also.

Throughout the duration he had stayed in the forest, those dark smoke figures dared not bother him anymore. Just thinking of the ancient beings and the strange boy made the creatures’ hearts flutter with fear. Whenever they would see the boy, they would flee to darker shadows. They, with a debate while in huddles decided with a unanimous agreement that they had to postpone making that chaos and commotion on others for a while. After huddling around the chief of the shadow’s center and deciding a silent fearful strategy.”