Maybe, maybe, maybe. The whisper of the wind brushes my hair into my eyes, depositing that one word into the air over and over and over.
Maybe, maybe, maybe…

“Where am I?” I ask to no one in particular as I shuffle down the crooked path, laughing nervously as the grass poking up between the stones tickles my dirty toes. The sky above dons a grayish blue tint, somehow reflecting onto the colorless grass.
Maybe, maybe, maybe…
“How does the sky not have any clouds, even though it’s such a dreary day?” I suppose I shouldn’t expect an answer, but the lack of a reply makes me bite my lip, holding back the pain that slowly sets into my chest. “I guess this is the feeling of loneliness.” Saying these words makes them even truer as I grasp at the forming knot below my neck.
Maybe, maybe, maybe…
“Oh, shut up!” I scream at the trees and flowers surrounding me, keeping the meadow’s billowing grasses between us as they carry the sound of those retched words along; connected by an invisible string. Still repeating that one word, the wind seems to jump up and down, laughing at me through my frustration.
Maybe, maybe, maybe…
“Ah!” Rage replaces my frustration as I plop down on the ground cross-legged with my arms folded tightly across my heaving chest, aware of the digging pain sitting on the rocks brings.
Sitting on the rocks, hm, that sounds like an alcoholic beverage.
“Sh-h, please, no screaming, Cody,” an invisible man’s voice says, “you’ll hurt yourself.”
“You’d be screaming too if nothing ever made sense!”
Maybe, maybe, maybe…
The shrill call of a bird penetrated the echoing silence. My head turns rapidly in the direction of the forest to my left, from where the sound came.
I gulp.
Maybe, maybe, maybe…
The ground starts to rile in great torrents as a million and one red ants the size of almonds scurry towards me, their pinchers flashing in the dull sun as they clench and unclench. I am so dead.
Scrambling from the ground, I take off down the path, hoping that the ants will continue in a straight line. “How smart could a bunch of bugs be, anyway?” I whisper, breathless from my exhortation.
Apparently, this bunch of bugs are quiet smart.
Maybe, maybe, maybe…
“Maybe… what!?” I shriek, clutching the ache in my side as I glance back, finding that the bugs have changed course. My course.
“Maybe she can hear us.” The same voice from before states, seemingly everywhere, and nowhere, at the same time.
Branches whip past me as I enter the forest.
“Well maybe she can!” I yell, my words throwing themselves into the on-coming wind and slapping me in the face.
I continue down the same path, winding around boulders covered with green moss and twisting through the openings in the barren trees, the click of the ants right behind me.
Cody, Cody, Cody…
Great, I think to myself as the wind’s howl takes on a new form… my name.
“What do you want from me?” I suddenly stop, exhausted and gasping for air. I would not have done such a stupid thing under any other circumstance, but, problematically, I have run through the entire forest and come to the edge of a cliff.
The water splashes violently against the trembling rocks, far below from my unsure footing as the killer ants close in on me. I'm sure that, if these bugs had saliva glands, they would be frothing at the mouth.
Cody, Cody, Cody…
“Come on, you can pull through this.” That voice presses into my left ear, as if I were the only one in the world meant to hear it.
“That tickles.” I whisper in a squeaky voice, the hairs on my neck raising.
“Whoa, you heard me!” The voice wavers and disappears as I take a step closer to the edge, my dirty yellow converse teetering and slipping on the slick rocks and grass.
“Crap.”
And then I’m off the cliff, waiting for the splintering break of the bitter water to penetrate my skin.