It was a dark night. I walked across the grass, wet and dampened by the dew. The stars were glimmering in the blackness that spread across the sky. There was no sound except for the small rustling underneath my feet as I flattened the grass I was stepping on.

It was a field, a huge, expansive field. I had found it, and was walking across it for reasons unbeknownst to myself. I had never seen it before, and yet it felt very familiar, as if I had seen it before.

I had walked for what seemed like miles when I was hit by a sudden thought. What was I doing in this field with no end in sight? Why was I walking on and on without any guidance from anyone or anything, above or below? Why was I doing something that made no sense, something that would be viewed as strange by everyone else?

I stopped walking, but my mind was still thinking. As my thoughts continued swirling in my head, I told myself there was nothing on this field, not a single sign of life besides the blades of grass poking out of the soft, moist earth. And at the same time, I realized that I could continue thinking about the field because of the very fact that there was nothing on it. I could fill the field up with anything I wanted, with anything I pleased. It didn’t matter if it was real or not, because our definition of real and our perception of reality was so vague and deceptive in itself that one would find it nearly impossible to decipher the true meaning of what truly exists and what does not.

I knew that the field would be considered pointless to many, and I knew that my walking across it idly and aimlessly would be regarded as bizarre, or, summed up in a word that is so carelessly used by people, weird. I would be told that there was no reason for me to be walking on this endless field; I’d be told that I was being dim-witted, that I didn’t have to keep walking with no real intention of getting anywhere.

And then it hit me. That was exactly why I was walking across this field. I didn’t have to. I knew. I had known all along. I had found exactly the place where I could imagine, where I could go off into my own world where nobody could find me, where I could hide in a corner and put my emotions into a small private box that was locked by the most secure password in the world: my thoughts, my emotions, my mind.

* * *

I sit there, wondering.

Wandering.

Maybe there is life beyond the skies, beyond the stars we see with our two little eyes. Maybe there are years in our future that we will never count.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe – they just swirl around in your head.

Nightfall isn’t coming anytime soon.

“You coming inside?”

Ah, if only you knew. If only you knew wholly and completely what this meant to me. What this means to me.

How does it feel? To be alone, to be waiting, to be in need, to be lost. How does it feel to not know where you're going in life? How much more wandering are you going to do?

Let's just live in these words, forever and ever. Let's look outside of this kaleidoscopic window. Let's protect ourselves from each other. From ourselves.

As the wonderful - the wander-full - years come to an end.