I think I wrote this in college. Some weirdly autobiographical details, like the main character’s summer job (was what I did). Also, there’s a unfinished poem version of this same story here. Click through to see my theory on how they relate.
His name was George and he was a poet. That is — he liked to think of himself as one. He had always liked poetry, but had only in recent years discovered his talent for writing it. During his sophomore year at college, he had once devoted several weeks to intense writing, both poetry and fiction. He would type from the moment he awoke, until the moment he went to bed — with only occasional breaks for necessities.
He quit finally, when he came to the conclusion that neglecting his studies was not helping his grades. He looked so comical sitting cross-legged on his bed with his typewriter (his desk was too messy to be of use), that his friends had laughingly called him “the Second Cummings” (after the poet E. E. Cummings). He now thought of himself as ‘Second’.
He had written off-and-on that year, and the year after for fun and profit, though there was entirely too much of the former and not nearly enough of the latter. With the desire in mind to remedy the situation, he had decided to get away from it all during the summer between his junior and senior years. He took whatever money he had left from the previous summer (he had worked filling drums of hydrogen peroxide in a chemical warehouse), borrowed a friend’s car, and headed out west toward Wyoming — trying to find the one idea for a novel that would put him in the big time.
This is the story of what happened next.
He walked through the forest and the odor of pine. Around him, the long, straight trunks ended in caps of pine branches high overhead. The ground was flat, though slightly rising — a sharp contrast to the rough, mountainous country he had encountered previously.
The trees were widely spaced, allowing shafts of sunlight to slant in through the cool air. On the ground was a carpet of pine needles and occasional pine cones. High overhead, a raven could be heard, and in the distance, the hoot of an owl.
His clothes were dirty and ripped; his eyes were glassy, his breath came in clouds. His light brown hair hung down, unkempt; this boyish face sprouted several days’ growth of beard.
As he walked, his dragging feet dug uneven furrows in the pine needles. He slipped and began to slide as the ground fell away and sloped steeply down toward a gurgling stream visible through the trees. He scraped his arm on the way down, and came to rest by the side of the stream — his left leg submerged up to the knee.
He awoke some time later, shivering. His eyes focused on the stars twinkling above him. Where am I? he wondered — searching about him in the darkness. He rose to his hands and knees, teeth clenched at the soreness of his body. He coughed several times as he crawled stiffly from the stream. With his head hanging down, he stopped, panting, and tried to think back to how he got here. He remembered vaguely many days of aimless wandering through the pine forest, but before that — nothing.
Who am I?
Cautiosly, he searched his memory. Nothing there but pines and pine cones, occasional copses of gray-white aspen, elk, and days of walking through the cold with nothing to eat.
He had no wallet and no provisions. Rather than retracing his steps, he decided that his best course of action was to travel downstream looking for shelter for the night — and eventually, someone to help him.
He braced himself against a tree and stood up, pausing for his head to clear. He walked slowly downstream searching for a likely spot to spend the night.
He staggered down the street of the small village, his mind delirious with fatigue and hunger. He had travelled for days since the discovery of his amnesia. The ground had generally been dropping, and the air had become thicker and warmer. Finally, he had come across this village nestled in a heavily wooded valley. He had stumbled down into the village, and was now wandering down the main street. There was no one about.
He walked a bit further and collapsed beside the church. Somewhere, a clock struck two.
Second, his mind thought after the clock had rung the second time. His lips moved wordlessly. Second… coming? Of course, the Second Coming: I was sent to separate the bad from the good.
I’ll start tomorrow, he decided as he drifted off to sleep.
That night, he dreamed of angels.
Not sure whether the main character died at the end — one interpretation of the phrase ‘dream of angels’ is someone dying.