me, myself and I

There's a tunnel, and it goes backwards.

I've been told to walk through the tunnel, and to enter the field that I will find at the end. The tunnel is dark, and warm and dry, and there's a light at the end that grows as I walk forward down the backward leading tunnel. I step out into a sunny day, and the field is there. It looks familiar. The grass is high and spotted with wild flowers, and there are trees in the distance, all around. There is one oak tree, standing all alone in the center, and beneath it a large rock, and there she is too, kneeling in the dirt.

I've been here before, in a dream so long ago. I stood and looked at the little girl with tear streaked face and torn shirt. I know that she's been running from monsters, and I know what it is that she's buried in the dirt, because once I helped her do it, and because she is me. But I'm not so small anymore.

I kneel down beside her, and we are quiet for a while, then I ask her what I can do to make things better. She doesn't answer, instead she lays her head on my lap and weeps. I lean back against the tree and hold her for a while, until she's quiet. I stroke her face and I play with her hair. I ask her what she wants me to do. "Take me with you," she replies.

Then it is my turn to cry, because I am laying on my bed with my eyes closed, and she is a recurring phantom from my memories. I don't know how to take her away from that place, but I am loathe to leave her there. I continue to hold her as I wonder about it. I think about maybe promising to visit, I think about simply not leaving. I think about superheros and the cost of providing for a figment of one's imagination. I wonder about the consequences of messing with the time space continuum.

Finally I say, "fuck it" and I take her hand and lead her away from the tree, and the rock, and the little grave, and the tree gets smaller as we move farther away. We come to the mouth of the tunnel, black as night, and pause before we enter. It seems that we disappear, but I look back and see the tree standing all alone, and I know that she's with me because she's not back there. The field is empty.

We are in a tunnel, and it leads forward.