It has been said that stories can get complicated. It has been stated that stories inevitably do get complicated. We woke up in the woods and she got up first and I asked her why. And she said she needed to zip the zipper tighter. It couldn’t be zipped tighter, and I told her so, but she checked anyway. Sometimes her lack of trust in very simple matters astounded me. She would follow me down very dark paths but when it came to everyday facts she was possessed by some lingering doubt that perhaps I didn’t always know what was best. Or true, for that matter. So she wiggled out of our sleeping bag, checked the zipper–it couldn’t be pulled tighter–and came back and snuggled into my body with such an honest love that I forgave her distrust. Such was the cycle we were in, continuously inviting love to blind us from the fact that we were two individuals who were living completely different lives, but together. It was a happy illusion. It was one in which I desired to lose the verities of my life. We stayed in the bag for some time, and when the sun rays finally began heating up the small world we shared, we decided to get up. I went outside, I peed against a tree, then she came out, and ran a few meters away to pee in a bush. I started working on a fire, and once it was well underway I grabbed our pot and went to the stream to get water to boil. Down by the stream I was lulled into a peaceful serenity. I forgot about her, and our love, and the whole life I had lived until then, and was hypnotized by the siren song of the water rushing down its rock bed. My ears became attuned to the trees’ swaying, the leaves on the ground rustling. It was early July, and though it was hot at some point in the day the coolness that reigned on either end was divine. I filled our pot, and in a moment of unity with nature, leaned down on my knees and filled the palm of my hands with the clear water. I drank it and felt for a moment supernatural. This would be a great day. I walked back with the pot to our small campsite. It was illegal for us to be there. Or rather, it was not legal. But we liked being alone, especially after our years at the complex. It was, for us, something of a reassurance that we could be on our own after so many indications against the contrary. The complex encouraged us to depend, depend, depend, and we did. We became so dependent on the confidence of the higher ups telling us what to do and who to be and how, that we all became zombies. But we looked alike, so we didn’t scare each other. There wasn’t enough shock at that time to rattle our cages a little bit, and show us that we were, in fact, in cages. Very comfortable but, you know…I got back to our tent and the belongings that were spread around it. In all, we had a comforter, our sleeping bag, a couple of books, a deck of cards taken from the hospital, a couple of sweatshirts also taken from the hospital, from the room where all the normal clothes were stored while people wore the clinical robes. We had underwear–we had packed a lot of underwear–and two pots and a pan. We weren’t far from civilization. We could find a road pretty easily. We had only to follow the cluster of trails that were just beyond the tree line that defined what was a natural park and what was a wild forest. We were on the wild side. We had arrived here by walking the trails, which she found out about through a nurse she had befriended. The nurse was nameless, she had refused to give out any information on herself. This anonymity had empowered her to save us, to give us the way out we so desperately needed. She had explained that the hospital was on the further boundary of the complex, an error in planning on behalf of the all Mighties who thought their society would be perfect enough to be spared by illness. These Mighties had enough pharmaceuticals to keep any malady at bay long enough for death to be the only outcome. Death didn’t require a hospital capable of captivity. So it was that she told us about the trails, and the national park that acted as a barrier between regular society and the complex. No one was allowed to visit national parks anymore, because the situation was dire to the point that mere footsteps on protected grounds could set off a chain reaction that would kill everyone, capitalists included. But she told us that might be a lie. Though it might be true, it might also have been something the complex invented to keep people in and away from their grounds. Either way, what awaited us there, as Bob was made an example of, was something all too unpleasant to justify taking death off the table. Her and I had run away walking. We had accumulated some things and left at night, walking our way out of one captivity into the unknown. It was thrilling. I can’t remember how long ago that was, for we seemed to settle into the routine outlined above quite quickly. She found her bush, I found my tree, we found each other’s body heat, and all of a sudden little else mattered. Nothing was put into question. Not our habits, not our thoughts about life, it was all about following the steps that had allowed us to live through the day before. I jaunted on these thoughts all the way to the fire and put the pot on to boil. I felt a pressing need to find her and talk about this embracing of the insignificance of life, and all the benefits it seemed to hold. It was quiet though. Everything was in its place but oddly quiet. I called out her name. I looked around a little bit. I looked in the tent even though her shadow wasn’t there. The sleeping bag was made up. I worried a little, because her contact lenses had run out and she couldn’t see well at all without them. I worried that she might have gone back to the hospital out of habit. But she wasn’t as bad as I. Her robot seemed easier to shed than mine. I checked behind her bush. All I found was a bracelet she had taken from the clothes room. She dropped it often, but she always put it back on immediately. I took the bracelet and put it in my pocket. Should I stay put, or should I try to find her? She didn’t like when I tried to protect her. She said it was thanks to her that we had escaped and it was best I never forgot that. I said that didn’t mean I couldn’t help. She said worry is a sign of dependence, and we are not dependents anymore. I said she was right, because she was. But somehow this felt wrong, to not worry. It felt like a test. Or a nightmare. To not worry. Could that mean not to love?
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