He knew with some degree of certainty that he wasn’t supposed to be lying there on his back in the middle of the forest, of all places. The problem was that he couldn’t for the life of him recall why he was there. He did a mental checklist. Legs, check. Arms, check. Bow. Bow? He had a bow?

What’s a bow?

Salman tried to sit up with all the effort his body could manage. That is to say: not much. He remained lying. He tried to trace his memory back to a time before he began lying but it wasn’t any help.

His back hurt. Oh boy, now that he noticed it, his back hurt bad. He got the feeling that something could stop it. Something in his bag. Bag? Yeah, a bag. Salman reached for it and got it. Ah, bag! Yes, something must help in here. Oh yes, here it is. He pulled out a skin that jiggled as he moved it. He jiggled it around for a while before remembering what he was doing. I’m in bad shape, he thought, and opened the top. He jiggled it some more. He put the skin to his lips and jiggled it again. It did something! His back didn’t hurt so much anymore. Wow! Jiggling is great, it made my back better! A moment of lucidity flushed through him to show how stupid that was.

He spent a few blissful seconds trying to come to some useful state, though he only had an inkling of what that could mean. No, there’s no point in going back to whatever it was. Might as well stay this way. It’s very nice. He fell asleep.

He awoke with a mist hovering over him. He was able to sit up again, and he saw then what laid around him.

All around were trees bursting with the afternoon sunlight, heavy with newly grown leaves green as a field of grass in a dream. The wind carried the smell of them, and of distant flowers first blossoming after a long winter underground. Birds called. Crickets grew loud and soft in their steady cycle. Salman knew none of the words for these things, but the feeling was the same. He felt safe. Safer than ever before, though he knew little of before. Just the first awakening he’d had minutes before. Or maybe it was hours. Years. There was nothing before and little between. It was spring.