The woods

The slender trunk of trees rise before me, but it is only an image.
Black, tall trunks, slim branches, thin leaves, but it is only an image.
Mist fills the gaps between the scores of black trunks, only white is seen in the distance. The woods could end just in a few yards, or keep going to the edge of the world, but it is only an image.
The pervasive smell of rotting, mist-wet leaves rise from the ground, filling my nose, my lungs, with the hint of long lives, long roots eating the earth, deep, deep under my feet, but it is not real, it is only an image.
A fell trunk lies, dead, in front. The moisture blackens it more, but it also makes it gleam. Among all the living, a dead, like a funeral. Like a promise of an end to the road. To each one's road. But it is only an image.
There is the slightest promise of birds, somewhere, anywhere. Short, far away calls to let them know I am there, to warn them not to go near me. To warn them to let me alone among the trees, alone in the woods. But it is not real, silence is real, this is only an image.
The mist moisten my skin, my clothes, taking away my warmth and presenting me shivers instead. I  remain still, not a move, under the sight of all these trees, trying not to tremble, to stand the cold, the moisture slowly reaching my skin under my clothes, my flesh, my bones, my heart...
But it is not but an image. It is not real, it is only an illusion, an image. I am not lost.
I am not lost.

Nowhere to walk to

Before him, darkness.
Fog in the night,
no moon, no stars.
No ground to his eyes.
Every step he takes from now on,
he will not know if it shall end in floor
or in hole.
Tears drying on his face,
nowhere to go back to.
Nowhere to walk to.

Last awoken

The head is killing me. I can't move. I can't see. I don't know where I am, or what happened. I try to see and the pain in my socket is like I had my eye teared out, so I close it again and wait for the pain to calm. When it has reduced to a numbing feeling I try and open it slowly, almost only a slit, and that way, I can slowly start seeing.

I see a black immensity, framed by smoking ruins of a roof. There's burned beams coming out, like blackened wooden ribs from a stone corpse. There's no roof anymore, so that has to be the sky. Immense, black, dotted by millions of little stars.

For a moment, I have the feeling that they're not but holes in a far, far away wall, with evil, greedy beings looking through them. For a moment, I feel as they are looking at me, but then I don't feel that anymore.

Half my body is hurting so much I can barely stand it, and I realize I could open only one eye.

Slowly, painfully, I try to move my hand to my face, but nothing happens. I try the other, hurting, hand, and its shadow blocks the sky. It's thicker and coarser than I remember, and when I put it over my left eye, the one I couldn't open, horror snatches my heart when I feel only an empty socket.

I've left my arm fall again and wonder how much injured am I. I can feel my lips and throat dry, my joints numb and cracking. I'm missing my left eye.

And I can't feel my right leg or my right arm.

I feel like I were to cry, but my one-eyed vision is just as clear.

Slowly, slowly, I turn my head. I'm lying in some kind of stone table, in a kind of house. It has been burned down. There are other tables, glass bottles, alembics, little ovens, boxes. The air smells like burned wood, smoke, ash, roasted meat...

I close my eye and I feel the crying but not the tears, and sobs grasp my throat.

It all calms down. Pain is slowly disappearing, just as strength is.

I think I'm dying...

And there's a thought: "They left you to die".

Out of nowhere, out of no one's mouth, just like that. "They left me to die". They burned this house down, with me inside it, and left me for dead. Something stirs inside me, not sadness, not just anger, but hate. I can't remember them, I can't even remember me, but this one thought is the only thing linking me to my past, to myself, and it's so, so... I roar, but what comes out of my dried lips is but a weak snarl.

But this hate is making me feeling more alive that anything I've felt since I woke up, so I embrace it, open my only eye despite the pain, and try to get up. 

I realize I've got only one arm and one leg as I fall. They left me maimed, one-eyed, half-dead, inside this fucking burning house and left me to die.

"Revenge"

Yes. That's what I'm going to enact on them. I'll find'em, I'll remember'em, I'll find'em, and I'll burn'em alive!

"Left"

I look left and I see an anvil, there's a mechanical-kind of arm, barely illuminated by the embers left by the fire, and then a bright, white, pale light illuminates everything. I roll to look up and see the full moon just came over the broken roof, good enough light.

I roll back and crawl to the anvil, take the arm and realize my own arm is also mechanical. What have they done to me?

"Golem. Left you. Revenge"

I'm recovering some memories, I remember how this arm is supposed to work, I remember what some of the substances in the alembic and bottles are, I remember how to write some runes to redirect and concentrate the power.

The moon is directly above me when I finally manage to connect the arm to my stump.

"Continue"

Of course I'm going to continue. I'll get my revenge even if I have to make my own body. I'll make a second leg, I'll make my own blood. 

"Revenge. Live."

This body of metal and wood, a golem's body, will get me my revenge.

"Relive us"

...

I'll live again.

"Relive US"

...

Asperger, and being yourself

Asperger's Syndrome - I will call it "Asperger" for short - is a syndrome I knew about only a few years ago. It's an autism-related illness. I know a lot of people can feel offended by me calling it an "illness", but as long as something prevents the normal, healthy, work of the body or the mind, I think it qualifies as "illness".
The story I'm going to share is about me, egotistical as it is.
When I first knew about Asperger was due to a couple of friends. They had discovered it and thought I had it. When I started reading I read "autism", thought about "Rainman" and the kid from "Mercury Rising", and tossed the idea. However, with time, I came to read more about it and find enough similarities with traits on my own behavior to worry. After passing a few years worrying, and fearing that I really were somewhat "broken", I finally went to check it.
After several tests and interviews, the psychologist told me I wasn't. I have my issues, sure, but the decision point was that Asperger people are unable to cope with them, where I had learn how to work around some of those traits.
Among other things she told me during the interviews, we talked about "being normal". One of my worries is that I didn't felt normal and didn't like normal things because I wasn't normal, and that, being not-normal, was a problem, because it would prevent a "normal", healthy relationship. She told me that she had known a lot of "normal" people, and they are a bit boring. I've been told that "normality is for mediocre people". Supporting as they are, I see a lot of normal-seeming people having their normal-seeming lives and being perfectly happy. Faith, a balance between knowledge and ignorance, love, children, families... Normal people, normal lives.
I have not heard about any of those people fearing that the only reason their relatives love them is because they're supposed to, instead of because they have good traits.
I haven't heard of them that they feel rejected because they're fascinated with science, with knowledge for the sake of knowledge, with thinking about thoughts, layer after layer, about stories and fantasies, about living reality but imaging things are not what they are (I say "imaging", not "believing")

I guess the point is that the more you wonder, the more insecure you are, because you always end up in doubt. Anyway, you can't stop wondering, just as you can't have faith because you want to.
Maybe the conclusion is a bit pessimistic for anyone wishing for a "normal" life, because if you're wishing it, it's because you don't have it, and chances are, because you're not "normal", so you actually have not a chance. So let's try to summarize:

Know yourself. Change what you want to as long as you can. Pretending is only going to hurt you and others.

Dreamemories

We don't sleep as humans do, but we daydream. But my brothers and I share dreams so similar that maybe they're not but memories, but they're confusing.
I see my hand wielding a fragment of a mirror
I see a man staring at me behind a glass, he gets angry, my hand hits the glass fragmenting the image.

I see my brothers, some standing, some lying in tables, some getting up

I see a wooden ceiling, stained by months of smoke.
I see the broken frame of a mirror.
I see a body, not unlike mine, but incomplete, its right side is missing

I see books. So many books.

I hear an explosion, I'm surrounded by flames

I see a human, lying in a table.

I see an anvil, a hammer over it, an arm, not unlike mine, made from wood and iron, lies incomplete on the anvil.
I see a bottle, fell in the floor
I see a woman's face, behind a glass. She doesn't see me.