The universe danced with my mind while I was out there. Stars streaked across the sky and the wind bit into my hand.
I had nothing to cover myself with, and even if I did, it wouldn't have made any difference. I wouldn't have been able to block it out.
On the colder days, I could hear the low rumbling of the wind as it rushed by, but it wasn't always cold. Some days I could feel the sweat dripping from my brow, sliding down my face. Some of my visitors would remark about how they were doing, and how it related to the days they were there. I listened. They were usually off living their own lives, so it was a treat when they came around, for whatever reasons that brought them to the home. Sometimes they would have a drink with them, taken from inside the house, and I would see them gulping down the contents from the corner of my eye as they watched the grounds with me, making one comment or another. Or simply holding the moment in silence.
They would usually be gone by sundown, and I would play a game with myself, trying to predict how long each would stay, based on the type of person I thought they were.
Those days were rare though. Most of the time, my visitors were birds and insects. I didn't mind them. Not even the mosquitoes. Almost everybody else around me hated them but I would watch them drift around like anything else carried by the wind. Yes, sometimes they would make a meal of me too. Maybe it helped me feel connected to the rest of the world, that I was not yet completely lost, that I could provide nourishment to something, even if it was just a bug.
Maybe I was lucky that I was never out when there were too many of them in the air, but even when I did have a bite or two, I would note how they felt on my skin, how they radiated sensation into the areas around them. It was an interesting reminder of what it meant to be alive.
There used to be a time when I would be scratching them constantly. But not anymore. They were just another sensation, a few extra instruments in the concert hall by the side of the home. If I wanted to pay attention to that part of the orchestra, I could, and I would be able to pick out every small nuance of that particular instrument. But the orchestra was large, and the instruments many.
Most people focused on stuff like sunsets or interesting birds flying by. I did too, but there was also so much more, and if they weren't paying attention, they would miss the rest of the concert. They themselves were part of the concert too, but few of them noticed that. Maybe it was easier for me because I was watching them, while they were watching everything else, including when it would be appropriate to take me back in.
I appreciated that, even if it was just their job. They had their own worries and frustrations in life, things that used to frustrate me as well. They were still in the middle of it, while still having to take care of me, while that kind of thing was no longer my concern. A past life I would never go back to, though if I had the choice, I probably would join them again if I could, fighting for survival once again each day, and having to worry about paying bills and putting bread on the table. I only saw that vicariously now.
The staff didn't talk about it much, but I could feel it weighing on their minds. The symphony wasn't always pretty. There was dissonance in their lives too, even if they saw me as the one with the real problems. The one they would never trade places with, not for any amount of money in the world. Not that any of us were wealthy. We were all doing our best. Though in my case, I'm not quite sure doing was the right word. I was the one they did things to.
But I would have thanked them if I could. Maybe they could tell as they wheeled me around, but I suppose they usually had other things to worry about.