L.S. Matthews - Lexi

Lexi

Contents

ONE

Being Born

Do you remember being born?

Of course you dont. Thats a silly question, youll say. No one asks that. But someone might have asked you: Whats your earliest memory? Some people remember things from when they were two or three years old. Maybe thats why we dont remember being bornbecause we were too young, just a tiny new baby, to remember anything that early.

But what if you were born, at say, seven, ten or eleven years old, fully formed?

Thats what happened to me.

Of course, I found out later this was really the second time I was born. But I didnt know that at the time. So Ill just tell you how it seemed to me then.

It felt a bit like waking up, but not quite the same.

First, there was nothing but a sound. A bird was singing, a waterfall of notes. Then it seemed to get closer, to be more insistent. The voice of little chimes trickled over my ears again and again, got into my head and started to bother me.

I became aware that I was cold, and I couldnt see. My hands moved, the fists clenched by themselves. Something crunched soggily between my fingers. I was uncomfortable. I didnt want to wake up, to be, but my body seemed to complain that I must. Wake up. Open the eyes. My lids were heavy and sticky, but finally they lifted.

A dark blur against a fuzzy soft blue light slowly turned into tree branches with sky behind. I turned my head to one side. Pale golden sunlight flickered along a denim sleeve stretching away: my arm. At the end of it, my hand held damp brown leaves.

The scent of sodden wood and earth rose up, filling my nose and mouth; a mushroomy sort of smell so strong I could taste it.

Slowly I tried to take it all in. I was lying on my back on the ground. I was in a wood or forest. I didnt want to stay like that because bits of me hurt and I was cold.

I found the other ends of my bodymy feet and legs; they moved a bit when I tried. I pulled my arms to my sides and bent them at the elbows and pushed myself up from the waist so I was sitting up.

Ugh!

Everything went blurry again, I remember, and I felt very bad, and just managed to lean over and away before I was sick.

I sat there a bit longer with my eyes closed until I felt better. Then I looked around again, carefully and slowly.

This time, things were clearer. I saw trees around me and grass shoots and plant stalks springing up among the brown of old pine needles and dead leaves on the ground. I had a little think. I watched a wood louse mountaineering slowly and determinedly over the leg of my jeans. I stared for quite a while. The soft rays of sun bounced on the curved tops of his little gray sections, making them pearly and see-through. The movement of his tiny legs rolled in a wave along his sides. Two fine-hair feelers waved questions from time to time as he struggled over unfamiliar fabric hills.

I checked what I DID know.

I knew I was a girl; I was wearing denim jeans and a jacket, boots and a T-shirt, which seemed familiar enough. You will know by now that I couldnt have just been born, even if it were possible, at about twelve years old. I knew what trees and leaves and wood lice and clothes were, for a start, and new babies dont really know these things, let alone the names for them.

But there was nothing elsenothing else I knew. When I tried to understand what I was doing therewent to the place we have in our heads marked What has just happened or even What has ever happenedthere was just nothing. Nothing there.

So I knew one more thingthat something was missing.

That feeling, added to the general uncomfortableness of it all, nagged me to get to my feet, to get moving.

My head hurt in a big, thumping-behind-the-eyes kind of way, and I staggered a bit as I took those first steps. There didnt seem to be a particular path, just grass and trees. Then, when I was wondering which way to go, the birdsong came again, quite near. I looked up and eventually I saw him. For all his pretty sound, he was a dull little thing of that color between brown and gray, with a slightly paler chest. He looked at me with his head on one side from a low branch, twittered a couple of times and fluttered away. Youll probably think I was a bit silly, but without any better ideasor any ideas at all, if Im honestI plodded after him.

I dont know how long I walked for. I admit I find this part of my journey hard to remember. At points, the ground was boggy and squelchy. I tripped over tussocks of grass a few times, because I was looking up for the bird, and once I nearly walked straight into a branch because I was looking down at the tussocks.

As I went along, though, I found I knew more things. One: I needed the bathroom. Two: I was thirsty. Number three happened when I couldnt see the bird for a while, and he wasnt singing. I got a bit scared, in the middle of the skeleton trees with the sky darkening between their tight, scratchy twigs. So I tried to call to him. I thought Id make a bird noise by blowing between my lips. Only air rushed out without sound. I put my tongue behind my teeth and managed to make a weak hissing noise. Apparently, I couldnt whistle. And then I tried calling: Birdeeee? My voice came out like something old and rusty, but I tried again: Hey, Tweety-pie! That worked. Voice came out nice and clear. So number three, I also knew how to talk, though as soon as I had, I wondered why Id called the bird that name. Couldnt remember. It didnt matter anyway. There he was again, singing to the right, and I was happy to keep following.

Tweety-pie wasnt frightened enough, perhaps, to make the effort to fly far away. He kept waiting till Id caught up and then hed do a low dart, a few flaps and a glide, on to his next chosen perch.

Besides stopping once to deal with the needing-the-bathroom-thing, which added to my knowledge collectionthat is, I didnt reckon Id done that very often before out in the wild, and I was hoping I wouldnt have to againplus a pause for a drink from a tiny stream (tasted good, but I didnt seem very good at that either, as I got very wet sleeves), I tramped on again for what seemed like hours. Id warmed up in the sun, having got off the cold ground, but as the darkness fell I started to shiver.

The trees changed to a mixture of tall ones and lower, bushier ones with thick, dark leaves. There were fewer leaves on the ground, and more ferny fronds sprouting everywhere. The air grew damp and sticky. Once, I thought I saw some kind of animal out of the corner of my eye, slinking away; at other times, I caught a glimpse of something which might have been a large, silent, grayish bird and the fan of a wingbeat, but I was never quite quick enough to see properly.

Sometimes, between bushes and trees, I saw a silver flash of water.

As I leaned on a mossy tree to rest, my tired eyes found a small pool glittering a little way between the branches and leaves, and there on the fringed edge was a bird of the most incredible colors. The beak caught my eye firsta scarlet blob with a yellow tip, against the dark plant life. Its head and chest were sky blue and sapphire softening to deep, metallic purple further down; its wings and tail were burnished green yet turned dark bronze as it moved; the legs were long yellow sticks.

In front of my eyes, this jewel of a bird seemed to walk silently across the water and disappear. How could this be so? I shook my head, looked again, but it had gone. I turned back to my trudging and wished I could step as lightly and effortlessly as that bird. If it was real.