"Personal"

Sometimes, I forget who I am.


I mean, who I really am. I'm Paragon, yes; but there is a person behind the name, a real, living, breathing person who was fired from her job and fell hard on her luck. That's me.


But... I'm beginning to lose myself. There is a reason why I did not share my name initially, but that has been lost to yesterday, just as my name itself has. I could not share it now, even if I wanted to. The question of "who am I" suddenly has graver impact on me then it would have before.


I am who I am, though. If I am Paragon, then it matters not who I was before. Right?


No, no, no... that isn't right. I want to be the person I was. I want to be happy. I don't want to be here, in Paragon's shoes. Paragon is starving, Paragon is parched, Paragon is going to die. If time existed for Paragon, Paragon would be counting the seconds. For Paragon, the sun has not moved an inch in the sky since she first saw it. It rests steadily overhead, as if staring at Paragon's desperate attempts to struggle against what is coming to her; how foolish of her, haha. Poor Paragon.


Such a shame that I am in Paragon's shoes, isn't it? I was happy, at least in hindsight. I did not feel emptiness clawing at my innards after every step; I did not have a pain that erupted (as a volcano would) after each step.


But that's what I am now. I'm Paragon. I can't run away from who I am; I've lost who I was, so I must merely focus on who I am now. The question is: what can I do to escape the situation? I don't know, so I'm posting here. Maybe that'll do something.


I feel... confined. I can walk as far as my lame leg will take me, to the furthest horizon; I feel that I've walked more now then I ever have before. But I'm still caught in this cage. There may be no bars on this cage's walls, but it is a cage all the same. Whether it is a cage of my own weakness, or a wilderness of such large proportions that I am caught in the ravine of a canyon, and have yet to scale it's cliffs: I do not know, and perhaps shall never know.


My body feels the rhythmic pain of fatigue; unrelenting and constant. The ground here is as soft and comforting as the roughest gravel, so I cannot rest. And even if I could rest, that would merely eat at what time my body has remaining. And that time is, if nothing else, growing shorter by the second, and I can do naught to lengthen it.


My breath is coming in gasps and pants; my nose occasionally spits a little blood, and my leg does nothing but ache, with the occasional jolt of pain, like lightning breaking the roughness of the sea. The rest of my body grumbles and growls, demanding sustenance. And yet, there is nothing to eat here, unless my digestion system has acquired a taste for concrete recently. But no matter how much it hurts to do this, I cannot stop. Not here, and not now.


Because there is a little something called hope.


Futile, unjustified, beyond reach. But there is hope all the same. Hope for an escape. Hope that I must reach; hope that, around this corner, I will find what I'm looking for. It is because of hope that I must not stop. If my hope flickers and fades, I am dead. I must endure, then. I will keep going. For if this is a cage without bars, I will keep going until I fall out. Why?


Because I remember something. Something before Paragon. Someone told me that they loved me, and I told them this thing back. I want them to hear it again.


And they will. By God, they will.