I mean, really and truly alone.
Count your phone as a connection to the outside world for this, because I think even interaction with others online would help you stay sane.
I think it would have helped me stay sane.
I live in the woods. Maybe just saying “the woods” gives you an idea of where I am, but I’m just going to leave it at that. All things considered, it would be best if you don’t find me.
I live in the woods very far away from any other human. I haven’t talked to people in years. I haven’t used my voice in years. I tried talking to myself a few days ago just to realize that my vocal chords had atrophied. I barely remember how I’m supposed to sound when I talk, much less do I even have the physical capacity for it. Chopping my own firewood takes less effort than saying my own name.
I guess I’m a hermit. By choice. I never liked people. Never wanted to be around them. Never really cared for the idea of a job, or a relationship, or found any meaning in religion. I just liked keeping to myself.
Sorry, I know this is probably disjointed. I have a lot to say. To type. It’s been so long since I’ve tried to contact someone else. I had forgotten I even had a laptop until I started digging through my attic. Forgot that my parents were paying for wi-fi for this place too, because they wanted me to be able to ask for help if I ever hurt myself real bad.
They probably think I’m dead.
Let me cut to the chase.
I think I’m going insane. Or I am insane. Or that the world has gone insane.
Maybe a week ago, maybe two, I found the carcass of a deer on the edge of the clearing that my house sits on. (It’s just about two acres of clear land, with my house in the middle and an overgrown path to the dead south that used to lead to civilization.)
I didn’t think much of it. Maybe a bear got it. Or coyotes if they were desperate. Didn’t know, didn’t care, just ignored it and went on with my life. I shouldn’t have done that; I’m a hunter, but I couldn’t be bothered enough to care. The garden was producing poorly due to some damned fungus and I was worried about trying to forage for something to make up the nutrients deficit.
I didn’t think much of the fact that it was still fresh, and the eyes were gone, and the antlers were snapped off, and its teeth were pulled.
I didn’t think much of it, or even notice it, until they were piled up in front of my doorstep like a grisly gift.
Even then, I thought it was some sick joke. Some lone hunter or drifter trying to freak me out for the sick fun of it.
So I just kept on keeping on. Hunt. Tend to the garden. Enjoy nature. Read whatever book I felt like for the thirtieth time.
I think I’m going crazy because I didn’t touch that pile, and it was gone the next morning. Not a drop of blood or scrap of gristle. No more deer body on the edge of the property. No tussled leaves where it might have been dragged. Just gone. Like it wasn’t there in the first place.
I think I’m going crazy because a few nights ago a hand knocked on my window at dusk. A hand connected to an arm that stretched out of sight like a gnarled tree root. Nails like savage claws.
Sorry. I think I may have skipped over a few things.
Let me go back to
I kept a close eye out after the carcass disappeared. Set a few snares out even though I was low on wire.
Did I mention that I made a run to a hunter’s shop every year or so? Just once a year. During spring, usually. Never talked to the clerk—think I looked too raggedy for them to chit chat anyway.
This was August. My only connection to the world wouldn’t miss me for another few months, if they noticed I was gone at all.
They wouldn’t, I think.
But I set out a few snares, and lost all of them. The wire snapped clean in two, if the trap was still there at all. Not a speck of blood around.
I think I’m going crazy because I’m starting to doubt I set those traps at all. Metal doesn’t just disappear. They weren’t dull wires. They were meant to trap and cut. Even a bear bleeds. A rabbit would be stuck.
i think I’m going crazy because I haven’t seen a live deer in weeks. No birds. No squirrels. No insects. Not even a frog, or a newt.
I don’t remember being annoyed by mosquitoes in the evening. In the dead middle of August. In a near coastal state.
I’ve been living in the middle of nowhere for years. I have no contact with the outside world except for a yearly trip, which I last did in March of 2022. The world can change a lot in six months and
I live in the woods very far away from any other human. I don’t know what walks in these woods because I’ve seen it in half glances out of the corner of my eyes and in the nightmares I try not to remember. I don’t know what it sounds like because if I did, then I would have to be insane.
I hunt and scavenge and garden for food and nothings been growing and I havent seen a living thing besides the trees and the grass in nearly two weeks and
I must be going crazy because if im not then something really knocked on my door and
The trees must be growing faster than usual because otherwise those things covering the ground aren’t roots and vines and
no one cares if i die because no one knows im here and
and the messages from my parents are real and they never made it here and and
Sorry.
I got a bit overwhelmed there.
I’m a hermit who’s lived in isolation for years.
I live in the woods very far away from other normal people.
I must be going crazy, because if I’m not, then something really is barring the door to my house and knocking on the windows.
I have to be crazy. Because otherwise the world is becoming too real for me to bear. Because otherwise I don’t want to be sane.
I have to be crazy.
I have to be insane.
I have to be mentally ill.
Please tell me I’m delusional.
Please tell me I have more time than this.
Please tell me it won’t keep going after I press send on this message. That there’s an end to this if I live long enough to make it to that hunter’s shop.
Please. Just tell me that it hasn’t already overgrown my only path out of here.