Where Am I - By Karl Chung
Story Brought to you by Karl R ChungWhere am I?
I feel a pain in my leg. My whole body hurts but my leg hurts most of all. My eyes are closed but I can hear birds warbling; can feel the intense heat of the sun on my skin.
Where am I? I ask myself this question because I don’t hear anything, at least nothing familiar. The sounds of life are all around me, real wild life. I have never been surrounded by such exquisite solitude it’s almost relaxing. There are always some type of car or plane or little kid to be heard in the background. Never so quiet. Never so absolute.
Curiosity willing me, I open my eyes as to get a better look at my surroundings. I try but they quickly shut closed again from the blinding light. I try again, squinting a bit so they have a chance to adjust.
Where am I?
I see green; the city isn’t green. It is gray and brown and dirty. And the smell, oh the smell. In New York the air is filled with filth. So much smoke and heat in it. Here the smell is clean and crisp. I would have to say the air smells fresh for it is the freshest I have ever breathed.
No kids whining, radios blasting, no thick smell of smog.
Where am I?
My eyes now adjusted I can see a little bit better but my view is so narrow. I attempt to turn my head. My neck! Oh my neck! Where is this pain from? Why am I hurt? My muscles are all sore. Is this agony real? My leg!
I feel water sliding down my face. Am I weeping?
I try again to strain my eyes open. A tree. Lots of trees, big trees but far away.
Where am I?
I can’t sit here. Wherever I am I cannot stay here. The blistering sun is too hot. For the first time I sense something else besides the birds. I did not notice it before because it was a constant. Water. A river, it must be. A natural river. I have never seen a natural river. Canals and various water ways but never a natural river. My tongue is dry. The sun is hot: I must get to the water. Will it be safe to drink? I have no choice. A thought crosses my mind.
If only I had stayed with my wife while she watched those episodes of survivor man. I have a wife? Yes I have a wife. Does she have a name?
Yes she does; Julie Stotello. I have a name. Stotello? No that is my wife’s name. My name is Robert JiErno, she wanted to keep her last name. Water. I have to get to the water.
Driven by thirst, I pull one leg close and turn on my side. My leg! The pain! Why. I try to remember but can’t recall anything at all. I look down. My leg! Oh my leg. It’s covered in red. How did this happen? I can’t wait here though. Thirsty, so thirsty. Have to get to the river. I look around for anything; anything that might help me. Fortune granted there was a branch only 5 feet away from me. I crawl.
It is not a big branch but it will have to suffice. This is no time to be choosey. I try to get up and use the branch as a support. My leg muscles can’t take it and I fall back down hard on my side. Oh my leg. Constrained, I try again. I must get up; its too hot and I’m too thirsty. Trying again I get into the crawl position with the branch between my arms. I Try to draw my good leg forward. Good it worked. Now using the power of my good leg and my arms I pull myself upward. Heart pumping from the intensity of the effort I succeed. However fast my heart pumps though I am now even more disoriented. My vision fades for a second and I start to panic. What is wrong? Then I realize. It’s just normal. . Much like when you get up to fast after sitting on the couch for too long. I wait; knowing this feeling of light-headed ness will fade soon. My sense back in control I find the source of the rhythmic water sound. There, the moist liquid sparkling the sun’s light to me as a beacon. I take the first step with my good leg. My sore muscles cry out but I bear it. If the pain means I am still alive then I will bear it. Now my other leg. Bracing myself for the pain that is sure to come I pull it forward another foot ahead of my other. It hurts so.
Determined to get there I keep going. One foot at a time. After was seemed like hours of work I finally make it. Unable to stand any longer I collapse head first into the shallow water. Nice cool liquid gently flowing over my face…
Click Here to go to Alternate Ending Created by an Anonomous Poster
Having finally satisfied my thirst I sit up. Thinking is easier now. Although I still can't remember what happened that put me here, I can recall almost everything else. My vision has improved a bit, I can now make out more than just trees and this river. Looking back to where I woke up I see, that I was just next to a huge tree in the middle of some type of field. How odd the tree is. Standing alone where its brothers are all so far away. It is a beautiful tree too. Except there is something in it, some foreign object hat looks as if it fell in some how. A tarp? What would a tarp be doing all the way out here on a tree in the middle…
All of a sudden pain starts surging though me. It’s like my body is punishing me for forgetting about the many cuts it has. Then it comes back to me. A parachute. That’s how I got here, and that’s how I got my injuries. Why I was parachuting, I have no idea, but as I was falling the giant parachute snagged onto the great tree. I was stuck up there for hours, unable to move or do anything. I finally just cut myself loose and fell to the ground at least two stories down. So that explains what happened but not how I got here.
I need to bandage up my leg somehow and stop the bleeding. I wonder how much blood I have lost. That’s probably why I feel so drained of energy. I use my shirt to tie my leg up as to add compression to the hot gash. What in the world drove me to parachute out of a plane?
Greedily taking a last chug of water I make my way back to the tree to see if there is anything usable that can help me get out of this mess. There is something in my pockets too, a piece of paper, my cell phone, and a lighter. No cigarettes though. My cell phone! Wonderful glorious cell phone. It even has service, what a small world this has become to be in the middle of nowhere and still be able to carry some object of civilization with you. Now I dial that one number that is ingrained into every person’s head since childhood. 911.
“Hello? I need help I don’t know where I am and I’m hurt, I think I went parachuting but I don’t remember anything else.”
“Ok do you see any roads or highways around sir?”
“No I am in the middle of nowhere! Please come find me, my leg is hurt and I don’t know where I am.”
“Ok Sir, I’m sending a rescue team please hold on. It is imperative that you stay at your present location, they will be there as soon as possible.”
Thank you modern technology! I won’t have to go start a life with the monkeys now. If only I could remember why I went parachuting it would make me feel better. Yes, that is how it happened! My convoluted wife wanted to go parachuting because she thought it would be ‘fun and relaxing’ and a venture to live a little for one. Where is she? She must have jumped out with me. Oh my god is she ok? I have to find her.
I get up and start calling out her name. Where could she be? I see no one in this vast flat plain. Could she have landed that far away from me? I start running as fast as my lame legs will carry me calling out her name “Julie! Julie! Where are you!” If I don’t find her what will happen? I keep thinking about the worst. “Julie!”
Then something catches my eye, something shiny in a sea of the green grass. I hobble towards it. Nothing that reflects the light like that exists in nature. Then I see the source, it the wedding ring. Still resting on her finger. Julie… is she? She can’t be.
All I can think of before I hit the ground is how pale her skin is.
Alternate Ending by Anonomous
Warning, Material Past this Line is not intended for young Readers AND IS NOT WRITTEN BY KCHUNG I am now at the stream, how cool and refreshing this water is. But my leg, how it hurts. I decide to put it in the water, it hurts at first, but I keep it in there. All of a sudden, a magic fairy pops out of the water and says "my dear, I can grant you three wishes." I said "Ok". My first wish is, naturally, that my leg will be back to normal.
The fairy then says "Ugga Bugga, make this leg back to normal", and poof, its back to normal. My second wish is to be at a club, and again the fairy says "Ugga Bugga bring this man to the ballinest club on the face of this Earth." Now I am "In Tha Club". They are playing in the club " Snap yo Fingers" by Lil Jon. So I start snapping my fingers and moving to the groove. The more I drink the more slicker smooth. They then play "Disco Inferno" by 50 cent, and she backed it up on me and I was like o man. The fairy then backed it up on me.
Let me tell you something, that fairy had a nice ass, big boobs and skinny.....damn. I was dressed in all black, but my hat said stilla. Its hard to imagine, the homie dawg with out his fairy. The fairy and I left that ballin place. So this guy decides he wants to race me. So...Need for speed I am tryin to take Tha lead and not a police want to flash their lights and chase the homie dawg, and his fairy all night. So I got home and I was like to my wife "Bitch we aint married no more, so get the fuck out of my house, Fuck, take your fukin survivor Man and leave this house, bitch." Me and that fairy we got married, and we had 30 kids, that fairy never gets tired. So Fairy and I lived happily ever after.
But let me tell you how I got stuck there in the first place, now that I remember. I was Hiking, and I decided that I was going to go bungee jumping. Well I forgot that I didn’t have a bungee cord so I made one out of rope, tied it to the tree. Let me tell you something, ropes don’t have much bungee recoil. So I was stuck 25 feet above the tree line. I decide FUCK I can make that jump all day, so I cut the rope and fell 45-50 feet. Well I landed in this really shallow stream, when these Pirates came up and tried to attack me.....not with swords......but natural swords, if you know what I mean. So I found a branch chopped all them swords off them. Well, exhausted from the attack, I decided to lie down and have a nap, I was just pretending in the begging that my leg and body hurt. It really didn’t.
THE END