Save Yourself

It felt like worming through the birth canal, miles long, twisting and falling through a tunnel that held me tight, then spit me out here. I’m at the bottom, in a garden, I guess. Though it seems a little bare, patches of worn earth showing through the grass, what seem like gigantic dandelions taking over in other areas. As I try to move forward, I’m stopped by brambles, huge thorns dripping what looks like red sap? Do plants have red sap? I push through them, for I can see no other way forward. They hold me, scratch deep, until I am trapped. I cannot move forward, I cannot move back. I turn and squirm, trying to free myself, but there is nothing I can do. I search  my pockets vainly for a knife, a pair of scissors, something I can use to cut my clothing free, hack through the brambles and tangles.

But my pockets, they don’t hold a knife, or a pair of scissors. All they hold is a small, broken, plastic doll. It is missing an arm, the empty socket staring back at me accusingly. This doll, I had her when I was small, I haven’t seen her in a long time though. I don’t know what she means or why she is here with me. Her name was Persephone. As I move her around, I feel the brambles squirming a little. Interesting. I wave her at the nearest tangle, and it shirks away, like water rolling downhill. I try and free myself with Persephone, but as I free an arm or a leg, another becomes trapped again.

What can I do? I move her again, and a thorn touches her leg. It dies completely, but when I try this on another thorn, the dead one grows back.

If Persephone is all I have, I cannot leave her here in order to free myself - I may need her company later. But perhaps I do not need all of her. She is already missing an arm, a leg will not hurt. I pull one free, and touch it to all the brambles. They release me, and die. 

I leave it there, and move forward. A river, raging and swift has appeared before me. Funny, that I did not hear it’s roar before, but here it is. Behind, I cannot go back into the brambles, so I must move forward. The river, too dark and deep to swim, just like the brambles, cannot bear the touch of Persephone. But it surges back, when I pull her out.

Still. She does not need that last arm.

I throw it in.

The river subsides, water gone.

And then, the desert. Heat baking my skin so quickly I feel as though the core of me has molten, turned to lava. Roiling around my insides.

The doll does nothing to the desert, but perhaps I need her to do something to me.

I struggle with my fingers, until I pull out her right eye. Smooth and slick, swallowing it feels almost like swallowing a pill. Almost.

I try not to think about cannibalizing my doll, and it feels like the eye has worked. I don’t feel like I’m melting any more, and the desert is fading to night. Far in the distance, I see a torch, coming toward me.

A man and a wolf slowly appear, the man looking calm and wise, but the wolf snarls at me.

I brandish Persephone at it like a weapon.

“Do you want my doll too?”

“That is a doll no longer. Only one eye and one leg remain. That is a doll no longer, it is just a thing, broken and useless.”

“So? I gave up the parts of it, to get this far”

“But now it is not a doll. It is not the thing it was, because you sacrificed her movement, her action, and her vision, and now she is not”

“It was just a doll. Why won’t you take some part of it, and let me pass?”

“When you sacrifice the things that you are, just to move forward, you have lost the essence of perfection”

“What do you mean?”

“You could have beaten any of the challenges in front of you, without sacrifice, if you wished to try. But you did not, and now there is nowhere further to go, because your soul is empty. Your only choice is to begin again, to rebuild the doll anew. Go.”

As the man and the wolf disappear, and all is blackness, I start to scream.