Writing Free- escape to the forest

And he stood on the rocky ledge, awash in the first rays of a new day. The forest stretched endlessly below. The ground he was going to cover was on his mind and he shifted his pack, letting the weight center on his back. It was times like this, the dawn of a day of possibilities, that reminded him why he chose this path. For truly, in his eyes, the world was never so beautiful as when it was first touched by such striking light. It was just now reaching the far crest of the mountain that was his goal. "And on," he thought, for many rivers, valleys and hills must he cross. But it was not worrisome for he had grown into this land and could run for days over the wild terrain. With that thought he sprung up from a crouch, took a running leap and dived over the edge of the cliff.

He had taken leave of his people, of his culture to come to this place in search of something. But it was not something to be found here but what was simply not here that he had painfully tore himself away to reach. Waking up with thoughts of hopelessness and despair were not here. The revulsion he felt at being amongst the city was not here. The agony of missing the sounds of trees and views of sunsets was not here. And the feeling of compromising on every aspect of his life was not here. To see with eyes cleared of obstacles, to hear with ears the individual songs of life, to smell with a nose unaccustomed to chemicals, to taste with a tongue that had become virgin to all spices. And to touch, to touch as if a blind man, discovering through textures the depth of reality.

But it was more than that. It was a personal experiment, a experiment he thought of as the human experiment. He had given himself 20 years, time to think, time to explore, time to test the limit of his knowledge. In his own words it would be a "search for the truth behind ourselves." And so he had put up his own life, for his own judgement and in that span of 20 years he would find that sliver of light in the dark or he would end his life with at least a little more certainty than when he had started.