Down and Up and Right and Left and Forth and Back and Out and In

Where should we start? Well, anywhere—it is after all my story. And likewise I can finish anywhere. Convenient, isn't it. Start where I want and finish where I want; a story I'll make my own starting right now; a story of my very own. Fair enough? Then let's say something was biting me. And we're off!

There's a tiny problem, though: whatever was biting me couldn't be seen. So should I say something that couldn't be seen was biting the hell out of me? Possibly. There could be something that couldn't be seen that was doing something that couldn't be seen. There was, though, something that could be seen. Ants! But were those ants doing the biting? I don't think so. There are of course people-biting ants, but these ants were different. Or maybe they were me-biting ants but not other-people-biting ants? Would that make me un-people-like? I hope not. But even if I could say I was un-people, I couldn't say I was so un-people that ants that don't bite other people would bite me. I was full-blooded people, nothing but, always have been. What was it then that was feasting on me? I've already said there were ants, but it wasn't them. I think there was no doubt in my mind about that. I just couldn't bring myself to think the angry red swollen dots that were so bitchyitchy they made me crazy-scratchy were from bites by ants. Even so, l who was unable to identify the biters found the ants guilty of the crime. And so I squashed them. That's how much I loved them. I offered them my undying love by slaughtering them. And they swarmed to me as if they wanted to die at my hand. Many were those swarming ants, and it became a chore. You want to kill them all? Then it's no rest for the wicked. God knows where they were coming from, but come they did. My body must have held some attraction for them. But what if the biters weren't ants? What if they were mites? Would that be why the ants were swarming me, to feed on mites unseen to the naked eye that were biting me? Whoa, I should have been breeding those ants—they're a natural predator of mites—instead of killing them.

I think it rained that day. At least I have a memory of being rained on. But I can't remember what day it was. I do, though, remember being rained on that day whose date I can't remember, and I got soaked. Soaked enough to know I was soaked. I wasn't such an idiot that I didn't know I was soaked. Not then, at least. Now it's a different story. Now? It's not clear to me when now is. I tend to use now to mean any time. But in the absence of any other reason, the reason I became that soaked had to be rain. If there was no rain, then I'll have to whip up another reason for getting soaked. There can be any number of reasons for getting soaked, and figuring them out isn't so difficult. But why don't I just come out and say I got soaked in the rain and make it difficult to cook up another reason. But if it's not difficult to cook up another reason, then maybe it was a brilliant day. I'm no longer able to distinguish the weather. And I'm unable to distinguish the weather that day in my memory. I could do so back then but now it's impossible. Was it evening? Whenever it was, light was disappearing from the sky and instead was shimmering like an object coated with a film of moisture. And enveloping me...