While trying to build a shelter for the life to come, a young forester fights with the elements of nature. All alone amongst the dangers of the woods, he lives within them, he bears them on his shoulders, he feels them, he fights them. Chop by chop, limb by limb, chirp by chirp and roar by roar, he learns to live not only with nature, but through it. All the dangers of nature, of Mother Nature, he learns them. He studies them. He sometimes goes through them as if nothing happened. He learns to love them.
He even closes his eyes at times, just to hear the murmur of the nearby river whispering that there is salmon on the way or that, alas, the mother bears are coming. You know, closing you eyes at times isn’t such a bad idea. You might be surprised by what your other senses have to say to you. It’s been proven by science. Once one or more of your senses is damaged, the others can develop to cover up for them.
But say… You’re the young forester. You love your enviornment. You love what you do. You love nature. It’s what you’ve been born for. And then all of a sudden, without a warning, while you were doing what you love most in this life: chopping wood, something bad happens. You chop off your own arm.
Of course, the first feeling is, well… no feeling at all. You’re in such shock that you don’t even realize what just happened. It’s a sort of deaf ache in the back of your head that tells you that something is definitely wrong, but you can’t exactly pin-point it. The most complete definition of „WTF?!” And this feeling that I’m describing can go on forever.
Alright. At some point, sooner or later (gosh, rather sooner than later), you start feeling the most excruciating pain (since lingering in denial is worse that ANY pain), a kind of pain that you would have never pictured before. We all watch horror movies, we all watch people being killed in the most horrific ways. Or we read such stories. It’s a kind of trend that’s been going on for a while. But nothing, and I mean NOTHING can come close to what you feel when you start realizing the pain of being one limb short. This pain can also go on forever. And when I say forever, I mean it really DOES feel like forever. This pain is like none other. It’s a burning cut that goes not only through the limb that has just been split in two, but through your whole being, making you realize how close together your physical body and your celestial one really are.
Once again, at some point, the pain seems to go away. All you’re left with is a numbness beyond description. Not even Pink Floyd could write a song about how this kind of „comfortably” numb feels like. It feels all the drugs and alcohol Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse did. All of them, in their entire lifetimes, all drugs at once. Now, that’s what I call an OD.
Actually, that’s what you’re left with for the rest of your life without that limb. A feeling of emptiness that can never be filled with… anything else. Sure. You might attach some robotic thingy, it might even work right. But nothing, and I mean NOTHING can replace the feeling that you once had veins going through that limb, nerves, muscles, flesh, all covered by your own skin.
Losing a limb like that leaves your soul crippled. For eternity.
And the above describes exactly how I feel about losing you.
Reptile Monarch Art Division 