When I first awoke, when that first spark of intellect and emotion came to life within my being, when I first passed from sleeping to living I did not know the difference between waking and sleeping. I did not realize, for several moments, that I was ‘alive’ because I had no concept of life. I was not, and then I suddenly was. That was all I knew. That I was, and that I was not suppose to be. Then I felt dizzy, sick, panicked, in pain, and I began to struggle. Weight pressed in all around, holding my body in place and pressing against me. And that was the first moment I realized I had being, I had mass, a body. Somewhere inside myself a very far away voice kept telling me I was ‘dying’ but I did not know what ‘dying’ was. Dying was a word, it was not this pressing, itchy, scentless weight. I struggled, and some part of me moved. One part, then another.
I kept pushing and struggling against the weight until I felt some part of me break through the weight and push into something without weight. I followed the path I had left behind, I pushed where my thoughts were up to follow the path, and I felt. It was the first time I’d understood that the weight I’d been aware of was something I was feeling, that the itchiness was from the weight, was from… what? What? What was it? I didn’t know. I could feel something moving across my skin, something almost soothing, but it made me feel… what was it? Cold? Was that it? Was that what it was? The dizziness did not stop for a long time, and I began feeling… bad. Very bad. One part of me burned and felt as if it may burst and then something happened. I felt something where my thoughts are move, ‘open’, and then the thing that was moving in the weightlessness went into the opening and down a ‘tunnel’ into me. My body contracted, forced it out, then forced it back in, and it made the bad stop. Something fell into my mouth and I felt a spasm shake me as the body tried to get it out. I tasted something, then smelled, and was aware that different parts of me were doing this, but I did not know how to control it.
Slowly, other thoughts crept into my own thoughts. Almost instructions. I opened my eyes and then closed them quickly. I felt frightened, though these thoughts that did not match my own were not afraid. I did not understand. I opened my eyes again, and understood that these were a part of myself also. I saw something pale and covered with something twitching compulsively in the dim light. I saw thick lines of something stretching upward, high up. I saw something attached to these lines up above, and beyond that something else that was ever higher up. I saw things on the ground, small things and big things, things that moved and things that only moved when that invisible something moved that and cooled me. The other thoughts called the lines with things at the top ‘trees’, the thing high up the ‘sky’, the little thing down low with me that moved ‘bug’, and the things that moved when the silent thing blew ‘plants.’
It did not call me anything. I did not know why it did not, but it didn’t. I tried to move myself and the pale thing moved in a jerking, twitching way. The thoughts called this an ‘arm’ and the thing at the end a ‘hand.’ I tried moving it again and it followed the command this time. I began to pull more of myself out of the nothing where I had come to be, and found that there was more of myself then the arm, hand, and my eyes. I had a second arm and hand, and something it connected to the thoughts said was a ‘chest.’ I had two ‘legs’ and two ‘feet’ as well. The place where my ‘eyes’ and thoughts were was my ‘head.’ On my head I had two ‘ears’, a ‘nose’, and a ‘mouth.’ Both feet had five ‘toes’ on them, and both hands had five ‘fingers’ on them.
All of these parts made me. They made my body, my being, but somehow my body did not seem to be mine. It felt foreign, uncooperative, as if it knew I was not the one it belonged to. But then, who did it belong to? I didn’t know. I laid down near the nothing… no, not a nothing. It was a hole. I had been in a hole. Why had I been in there?… The thoughts didn’t offer anything to me. I laid until the dim light grew brighter and I the invisible thing (‘Wind’ the thoughts said) died down. Then, I tried to move again. I moved my arms and put my hands flat against the low, the ‘ground’, and pushed my body up. It still moved only reluctantly, but it moved nonetheless, and I put my feet flat on the ground and tried to ‘stand.’
My first attempt failed before it began. I pushed, and then tumbled backwards onto the ground. My second attempt made it a little further, I was on my feet before I fell this time. I had never been completely aware until that moment just how heavy my body was. When all my weight was on my feet, I found that it was very difficult to keep my legs strong under myself. My third attempt, I stood, wavered, and then stiffened my legs and I finally stayed. Up off the ground, everything looked different. The longer I had ‘been’ my body’s eyes had become stronger. I could see clearer, and farther than when I had first become. There was more of… Outside? Yes, more of outside than I thought there was.
Slowly I tried ‘walking’ which the thoughts indicated would be a way to move. I raised my foot, then put it back down when my body tilted and tried to fall again. I looked down at my feet and then began to raise my foot again. This time when I tilted, I put the foot out a little further in front of me. I waited, balanced, and did the same with my other foot. I continued the action for a while, raising a foot, putting it down, balancing and then doing it again, and then realized I was walking. Some part of me felt lighter, stronger, but I did not understand why it felt this way so I pushed it away. I just kept walking forward, and found that I did not have a reason to stop, and so I did not. I felt things under my feet, things that were soft, hard, and things that were sharp and hurt. I did not know what all of them were, but I tried to understand what the sharp things were so I could avoid them. They made my feet ache, and sometimes made openings from which something wet and sticky leaked.
I walked, and walked, and walked until I came to a place where the ground ended. I tried to stop, but my feet did not follow the command immediately. I fell forward and into something cold that hurt my body and feet. I felt my chest seize and work compulsively, and a began to drag myself back to the ground. I sat there and shivered for a long time, body wracked by sudden chills I could not contain or stop. My body just shook. I saw something in the ‘water’, as the thoughts told me it was,  and leaned over to try to see what it was. I looked and saw something, something I did not recognize at first. Pale and dark at the same time, kind of fuzzy looking in some places, rock like… Clay like… Then the image changed and the thoughts identified it as ‘me.’ Me, this was me. A blank, pale face covered in dirt, sand and mud with dark eyes, thin lips, and a nose. Below the face was a ‘neck’ and then my body.
It was me, it was who I was and what I looked like. I sat there for a long time, until the image vanished, and found that no matter how long I looked at myself, I could not recognize myself.

I stayed in that place for a very long time. I found that my body did not require much ‘sleep’ which was something the thoughts insisted I do every night. I slept once every three nights, and I never required anymore sleep than this. I found that my ‘hands’ could be used to pick things up, from large branches and logs to tiny pebbles. I found that I could speed up my walking, I could ‘run’ and ‘jump’ as well. I could eat almost anything except rocks and earth, and those things did not taste good enough to eat anyway. I found my body resilient to the cold, but I did eventually cover my body with anything I could. Eventually, the thoughts told me how to make ‘fire’ and I did as they told. Once I understood this, I made a fire every night in the hole I had dug myself out of for warmth. I found that the sensation I identified as ‘pain‘ when I awoke was not pain. It was the fluids within my body moving through me, nothing more. It was a part of being.
As time passed, I began to search my body for understanding. I found, almost immediately, that my heart was not beating. I didn’t understand why it did not, as my body required me to breath, but I found that somehow my heart was either not beating, or not beating so strongly I could feel it. My thoughts said this meant I was ‘dead.’ What was dead? I had a feeling I knew, but my thoughts would not tell me what it meant. I struggled with the word, I fought with it, I demanded to know it. But it eluded me, like a secret or puzzle on the tip of ones tongue.
One day, I wandered about and discovered a place with shelters and a fire pit. My thoughts called this a ‘campsite’ and the shelters ‘tents.’ I looked inside the tents and found no one there, and so I took a bag that was inside and walked away with it. When I searched it later, I found ‘clothing’ inside, and I put the clothes on myself for warmth. I dug through the bag and found a stick with smaller sticks in it. A ‘hairbrush.’ I ran my fingers over my dirty scalp and found I had no hair to brush, so I put it aside. I found a square of something else inside with things in it. A ‘photograph’ with ‘people’ in it, my thoughts told me but I could not believe something so real looking couldn’t be real. I touched the surface and tried to get them to acknowledge me, but they did not. After several hours of trying, I gave up and put it aside. Then, I found a larger something with lines and colors on it. My thoughts said it was a ‘map.’
I opened it and laid it on the ground. Somewhere inside, I knew how to use the paper and I knew how to follow it. I turned the bag over and emptied it of everything inside, then sat down and began to sort through the items. Into the bag, I put a jar with something living inside, more clothes, a stick that my thoughts claimed made music, the map, and two boxes my thoughts said did things I did not understand. After that, I took the map and put the backpack on. Then I started walking again, and this time I did not know where I was going, but I understood the markings on the paper. I was going to ‘Gary.’ I did not know why, but I knew I had to go there. I had to go to Gary, Gary, Gary…

It was odd. The more time that passed, the more the other thoughts became my own and the more I understood.  Movements once jerky and unpracticed became refined. Things once unnamed had names. Still though, the knowledge only came when it came time to use it and the knowledge I did not use often never came to me. As time passed, I think I forgot this knowledge. I may need to relearn those things on my own. Occasionally my mouth opens, then closes itself as if trying to understand its purpose.  I do not know why it does this, but I do not stop it. Sometimes my mouth and throat make a buzzing sound my mind identifies as ‘humming.’ I do not know the tune, but I keep making the sound anyway. I like hearing myself, hearing a sound I can make on my own.
The first day walking, I find a long, black river. At least, I thought it was a river. When I put my foot out to step into it, I stepped on it. Then I recognized it as a ‘road.’ After a moment of looking around, I followed it. The road was quiet, so quiet I could hear the bugs scurrying away from the road as I walked. So quiet… and then I heard something. The sound was so close and so clear I dropped the map and spun around, falling down and staring about. Nothing was there. I stood, retrieving the map as I did so, and looked around. Nothing. Then I heard it again.
“D-D-Dead… D-Dead…” I realized that my mouth was moving, that the humming had changed and the sound had become stronger, clearer. I was ‘speaking.’ I rubbed my throat, feeling a little bit of pain as I did an act I had never before done. More knowledge came to the front of my mind. I was speaking English, I knew this now. I knew that I understood another language, and that I liked that one better, but I did not know why. I just did. The understanding of where the sound came from soothes me slightly, and I begin to walk again. The funny, light feeling enter my chest again at the knowledge that I can speak. I think it is called ‘pride.’