The forest deepened - the twinkling star-like lights on his horizon grew smaller as Don tread steadily along the path. As the bright blinking lights faded, his eyes adjusted to the dark. It was a deep gloom that shrouded the forest, not an inky black. the trees twisted together forming strange brooding shapes - the path had taken him to a blackened forest of mysterious life. These trees and their roots were almost growing before his eyes. Don blinked and rubbed his eyes. He was growing as well - or regaining lost growth. The farther he was from that killing bed, the younger he felt. He couldn't remember the last time he felt this alive, but he could remember this vigor. A time when he felt like he could march all day, when he could swim across a lake - and back. He could remember playing the Don all night and napping before dawn - to awaken at first sign of light, show his ardor again and work the day and night after. How could that rain of kisses not sustain a man for another day? Don remembered the lust had for life and could feel his limbs stiffen with that long lost strength.

Something was happening in this flight from death, he thought. He wasn't fleeing the smothering death that was suffocating his life away on that stank ward. He was meeting something - and it didn't feel like the proud death he thought he was flying to, like a moth. This dark path had turned him from these glaring beacons of stark oblivion. He was treading to something else now.

His foot struck something hard and threw him straight to the ground. He just barely got his hands out to brace his fall and eased to the ground instead of crashing to his face. At the same time, he glanced about himself. His dexterity and canniness felt completely normal and indecipherable. The stiff bones and atrophied muscles were not his anymore. The catlike sense of his youth had rejoined him in this gloomy shape-shifting tangle of trees and undergrowth. His senses were sharpened by this sudden plunge to the ground. He could feel at his foot the wide-ranging root from that sprawling chestnut tree behind and to his right. He could feel its winds and turns through the soil and into the wide old trunk with this toes. The sensation startled him, but didn't slacken his calm awareness - this cool appraisal of this mysterious thicket. Don was acutely aware that he had shaken years of lethargy and indolence, ages of futility and waste and reawakened to this lost youth. This was a renewal though, not a rebirth. As his mind clicked through the inventory of sensations, he could still feel the ache of his surgeries - the twinge of years of injuries - even the senile holes of his brain could be accounted - somehow these physical degradations weren't a match for this swelling of spirit. This was a marvel, but Don could feel an urge not to tarry in this marvel - there must be a reason for it. The forest that he could feel spread about him must be the reason - or the cause way of this elixir. He had to penetrate this gloom and find where this path led.

Don pushed himself up to his knee and looked about. There was no path! His eyes were well adjusted to the gloom now. He could see the still figure of an owl away on the branch of a tree. Its silhouette indicating its attention to his presence. He looked about, back from where he had come. somewhere he had slipped off the path and stumbled among the trees. He didn't see any faint trail or pathway behind him in the dim gloom, though. Maybe not being on the path was the way he found his strength? Which way to go now, he thought? He stared hard in one direction and then another to discern any causeway to pursue.

Nothing was what he could see - one way was a gloom of emerging shadows of trees as was the other. No clear avenue presented itself. Any choice was as bad or as good as the next from this vantage point.

"It doesn't make any difference - this or that, I just wish I had a bat..." he murmured, surprising himself with the silly rhyme.

The owl startled and dropped off the branch on to its unfolded wings. The big bird swooped by his face - its splayed wing feathers brushing past his ear.

Don quickly turned and just caught a glimpse of the owl's shadowy flight disappearing to the gloom.

"Well enough - the rapier knows this place well enough. I'll follow its lead." Do thought it was not cautious to be speaking to this gloom, but his mouth seemed to be finding voice without his thought. He shook his head slightly and stood up. He would feel more comfortable with a shillelagh, as a matter of fact, thinking back to his grandfather's favorite walking stick.

The trees passed by slowly, one to the left, another to the right. It seemed like they were maples, more than chestnuts, but he continued to spy those great large trunks often enough. This was quite an old group of trees - haphazardly arranged by their own natural growth. Don didn't know where he was - but he was sure this was no city park. It was a harbringer of his lost childhood - a nest of trees undisturbed by any interest of commerce. As he passed by one tree and then another on the owl's mission , he became ever more sure that this was quite a large nest, as well. How wild was this thicket?

He came upon a fallen branch. It was fairly straight - too large for a shillelagh, not quite up to a staff for prophecies. It was a good size to brace him on this walk, though. He took hold and stripped off the loose bark where would grip it.

"All I need now is a pair of sandals and I could cross the desert, too."

"There was that mouth again, encouraging a carnivore's interest", Don thought.

The Don stumbled to a tree, hiding him from the glare of the boulevard. The light was blinding, garish, painful - he felt the bark of the tree pushing into his back, the exhaustion of the effort pressing him against the trunk. His breathing was shallow and labored. His chest hurt. His arms had aches and shooting pains that arced down to his knuckles. His wrists felt heavy, like weights hanging over his palms. Sharp pains in his neck made him cringe. Part of him wanted an angel to deliver him from this agony with an elixir of peace. Another part embraced the pain as a long lost friend, a reminder of life's balance due .

The pain renewed his effort to seize his goal. Confusion swirled within his sense of balance. He fell down the tree, bark scraping the soft folds of skin across his hands. Don landed on his side. The anger pushed him, as he held his head away from the ground. Waves of pain roiled through his body. The sudden shock of the currents of pain flooding his body stunned him. A whimper squeezed out past his gritted teeth. The anger gathered into a hatred for his petty physical self. "Be free", he raged to his hands, his shoulders, his arms. The rage pushed through his withered arms and he pushed through the incapability, the atrophy, the sloth and the loss. Slowly he raised himself. He pulled his leg and dragged it below his raised frame. His body shook from the effort, but he was nearly there. He pulled his knee under his hips and leaned against it. His heart was pounding - it made him swoon. He could feel the blood squeezing away from his mind. The dark expanse of nothingness pulled at him. The dulling thread of the dark shroud threatened.

Don paused, resting on his knee, lowering his head and grasped for the glow of life to return. His mind sharpened from the battle. The surge of blood returned, He could feel his heart renewed from the struggle. A vague memory of other struggles slipped past. How many times had he taken this venture? Was that gate familiar? Had he been at this tree before, hiding from the glare of death beyond? It didn’t matter. The Don dragged his foot up and pushed up and leaned against the tree. Those battles hadn’t killed him. This battle was being fought now. It was time to move forward and discover what his fate would bring.

The trees formed a line, beckoning his path to follow them. From one tree to the next he moved resolutely, pausing on occasion to gather himself for the next. He could feel the damp of night on his shoulders, seeping through his thin robe. The cool was a blessing. The strain of this escape had made him hot. The heat was going to overtake him, pull him back to earth. The cool helped keep him moving forward. A narrow street appeared past the row of trees. Beyond were more trees and small paths. Don peered intently at the landscape beyond. Beyond the path passing between the trees looked like a grove of trees. Don waited for a bit before going beyond this narrow stream of a road and pushing on into the dark mysterious forest.

He thought back to those ancient forests he had met, the small villages and herds of sheep in New forest, the dark mass of the Black Forest that opened to magical villages of ancient peoples protecting their gates from interlopers, trading cautiously with the travelers that wound their way down from the Alps. What forest is this he wondered, on the edge of blinding city of ruin.

The angry glare of its ruthlessness shone all around, casting its glare to the sky. The sky seemed to hang over it, nullifying that glare with it’s dull sky. Only here did that glare pause. The forest seemed safe and held private from the ever probing glare - the watchful hatred, the callous exposure of the harsh city. Don stepped nimbly across the flowing street and down the path. It’s dark mystery beckoned him to join its route and find his way.

The dark boughs joined above him. Faintly winking between the dark mass of tree trunks and branches were small lights gathered on a close horizon. The path Don tread on was faint almost invisible. It became less sure, the smooth paving tuning into a mass of leaves and twigs from the trees above. The forest was quiet - but Don could feel a watchfulness. This presence tuned Don's senses. His exhaustion and swimming confusion was lifting away. His attention felt sharpened and he was more awake - the drugs and torpor were draining away. He could feel his lungs filling with the forest air rejuvenating and refreshing his soul. He was drinking in this air. The sensation of being observed renewed his decayed frame with a feeling of youthful vigor long unknown.

He sat up in a start. His torturous dreams suddenly done, it was time to make his escape. His cellmates choked and snorted - dying or sleeping - it mattered little. The skinny one stared ashen out the window as if his redemption would fly down from the heavens to greet him. Don knew better.

His eyes darted from the cell to the hallway. His keepers weren't standing guard today. His eyebrows lit up with anticipation. The opportunity to escape beckoned to him. He could leave this torture chamber behind.

He got up from his bunk and tread uneasily, waveringly, to the cell door. It stood open! Very slowly he sneaked a glance down the hall and then up the other direction. The night was still, save for a murmur far up the hall and in the guard center. Bags of refuse were scattered about. Perhaps the guards were changing shift. Don didn’t care, his torturers could only kill him now - he was beyond pain.

Uneasily he staggered down the hall away from the murmur. The effort was exhausting, but he set his jaws and picked up each weary limb and forced his way through the agony to the end of the hall. A red flame flicked it’s notice of the way out. Each step powered the next, but the hallway seemed endless.

The stale smell of death filled his nostrils and made him gag.

There was the end. The hall broke in two - one this way, the other away. Cell after cell stretched down the halls full of snorting, rasping dying. Which way would get out? Behind him was the sound of shoes padding against stone. The murmuring had stopped? No time to think - he pushed on hoping he’d taken the right path.

The gate stood before him in the dusky dark. A sign was above, but almost invisible in the gloom. Here was the portal, in or out, he couldn’t be sure, lack of certainty was his only clear thought. Everything else was a jumble of sound, within or without, it was impossible to tell. The uncertain gate looked final. There was nothing behind, only the gate was hiding beyond.

The crossbar seemed to pop the gate open. It pulled him through to a smooth path bounded by shrubs and grass. The muffled voices and hurried footstep behind compelled the Don to hurry across the grassy expanse. Above a dim moon fairly glowed behind a hazy sky. The glow of lights all around gave the sky a dull grey to its milky mist. Beyond the grass was a dark lined plain of gleaming metal cocoons with reflective glass smearing the light from the painful panels suspended above.

The Don stumbled amongst the shining metal forms, his robe billowed around him as he felt his muscles and tendons straining against the atrophy of timeless inertia. His gnarled hands guided him from one metal shell to the next, he could feel the dribble dripping from the corners of his mouth, the dried moisture over his eyes. He vowed to find some water and wipe the past off his face.

Ahead lay some trees and another path of flat white concrete - beyond that a wide street. Dimly he began to remember these machines using wide, vast boulevards of tar to speed their occupants from one part of this endless city to another. He could remember sitting in the comfortable cabins of these machines, listening to endless tales of political intrigue and economic counsel. How many false stories were repeated with authority to his disinterested ear in those many expeditions?

The Don could vaguely remember how slow anger had brewed in the many hours he pushed through those crowds of machines every day. The memory of that deepening anger stirred him forward.

"Not again, I’ll be free or die", he vowed, gritting his teeth.

Swirling black chaos roared around the hole.

Darkness lit by the glow of its emptiness filled the space with bursting anger.

Within this emptiness, rushing space found gaps and poured in. As if there was wind in a tunnel, the angry rushing sound screamed like wailing sirens. Throbbing howling chaos wheeled around and around - an endless cycle of despair and emptiness.

Suddenly, as if another hole let the pressure escape, it burst to a stop.

He felt the darkness stuffing into his mouth and sticking like grit between his tongue and teeth. Too dead to move, but too alive to choke with this dark. He could feel light swirling beyond the dark. Vaguely, it lit his awareness. Soft shapes could be seen revolving around him, pulling and tearing at him - yelling and breathing at his shame.

He pushed at the dark grit with his tongue, blew the sandy stuff out of his nostrils. He could feel his eyes behind his closed eyelids, his mind within his skull stumbling through his brain, pounding against his head. He was breathing deeply, slowly finding his life. He could feel his shoulder jammed up beneath his neck and his chest pushing against the ground as he breathed. Far behind were his arms pinched between his body and the dark hardness beneath him.

His breathing became more regular. Everything hurt and nausea was accompanied by a pounding headache. He swallowed and opened his eyes. Below him he could feel his legs limply laying against the brown sand that he blinked from his eyes.

The headache defined where his forehead held his brain. His muscles felt like leaden balloons pulling his arms down into the sand. He rolled his head back and tried to see. the sand and sky blended together into a cacophony of light and color. Somewhere that rushing sound was leaving his head and pulling away. He rolled over on his shoulder and felt his cracked lips drain the fluid from his soul.

He felt sick enough to die, but thinking hadn't come yet.

He lay on the sand half turned over, his legs twisted beneath him. He was breathing well, but couldn't get the rest of him working properly. He couldn't see well and his mouth was full of dirt. He could feel his body bruised and scarred. He needed to drink.

"....where is some water?", he thought.

He dragged his arms up and pushed the ground away. Sitting up, he could begin to make out shapes beyond the color and light. Here was a beach, the sand dark brown and wet. Above him the sky shone a light blue - the haze of early morning tempering the heat of the sun.

Far below, at its low tide, the surf gently washed across the muddy flats. The sea stretched to the horizon, unobstructed by haze. Beyond the beach beckoned a cool forest. Around him was the char of the last tide. Bits of seaweed, shells of he dead crustaceans, carrion of the deep fed their spirit to the briny breeze. It was all too familiar, and never seen before. He had to find some water. The salty sound and briny sea would suck his life away - he had to get up!