Ursa (Unfinished)

Isn’t it so often the case, that we create meanings in our memories of the ordinary? Perhaps that day was not so different from any other, just one more in a routine of many that I had unwittingly become accustomed to.

A numbed world greeted me every morning, and as I read the daily newspaper on my long commute, I noticed nothing outside the window, nothing of the people surrounding me. Indeed, barely anything of myself. This repetition had engulfed me for longer than I can recall, for time is a privilege of change, and my prison was both invisible and infinite. When the everyday becomes the only day, I fear we are blind to the possibility of anything beyond our walled existence.

I could claim to have woken that morning and felt a shift in my life approaching, a whisper of subconscious alterations to my world, but I did not. I felt nothing. I could only feel nothing. To claim otherwise would be romanticising the events that unfolded that day, an activity which in this instance I will do my best to avoid, so as to portray in the utmost clarity the occurrence that befell me, and so that you may understand soundly the event of which I was a witness. I speak of the day that I found Ursa.

I was out jogging; an activity I occasionally partook of in those days. It was not for appearance, no thoughts of vanity every crossed my mind, but more for myself. The burning muscles and lungs a subtle reminder, perhaps, that I was still alive. I ran with no music, it had been years since I’d listened to anything more tuneful than television theme songs and advertising jingles. Instead I ran, head down, listening only to the sound of my own pounding feet and harsh breath. It was in this manner that I reached the forest that formed a part of my circuit, only realising where I was by the sudden shade cast over me, and the foliage covering the floor beneath. The cool air circulating beneath the trees cooled the sweat on my brow, and I was thankful to feel its soft, natural touch on my neck.

It was then that she first cried out to me, though at the time I did not know from where the noise came. A mournful plea twisted among the branches from somewhere off the path, a sound unlike anything I had ever heard. I stopped dead.