Death's Reminders

He came to slowly, his senses returning one by one.  First was hearing, the sounds of the birds in particular, sweet morning songbirds told him the time.  Then he opened his eyes, still feeling nothing from the shoulders down, his vision was blurry, and considerably worse in his left eye.  Slowly, very slowly, his feeling returned, the first thing he became aware of was cold, cold on his cheeks, cold with each hesitant rasping breath.  Something wet and sticky pasted the inside of each nostril, but his fractured mind couldn’t discern what it was.  With a soft snort and a tinkle of bells he remembered he was on a horse… but why?  His inability to recall was making him frustrated.  His breath came in shorter gasps.  Calm down, his mind told him, and his breathing, though still blocked and ragged, did slow, now, think!  What is going on?
(You’re a merchant)
He shook his head, now he remembered.  He was on a trip to Whorrlby, to deliver… what?  It didn’t matter.  He was selling things, he was part of a caravan, they must have been almost halfway to their destination when, the name teetered on the tip of his tongue before deciding to retreat to the halls of memory.  They had stopped for something, rest probably and then… something had happened… something bad… but WHAT? Why were there so few answers to all these endlessly meandering questions?  Questions that circled around his brain waiting to be remembered, but those answers were fleeting and he could never catch them.  It was like trying to read something on your peripherals, he decided: impossible, and infuriating.
Focus on what is happening now, he told himself.
He took a deep breath, and then took another attempt at memory, but it was useless.  Take a look around, jar your memory.
He was in a forest, and a large one by the looks of it, it was familiar, but he still couldn’t place it.
(Man in the village, it belongs to the man in the village)
The disorganized thought floated through his mind, but meant nothing to him.
It was snowing.  It had just started if his intuition was correct.  The air was freezing, and he realized he had a large woolen coat, not a nice one,
(You’re a poor merchant)
but it kept him warm all the same.  He had a scarf, but his face was frozen…literally in some places.  Some sort of liquid had either congealed or frozen to some extent on his cheeks and under his left eye.  He had not the strength to feel his face.  He leaned over his horse… pony, more like. It (she) was sandy brown with an inexpensive bit, bridle and saddle.  She (Josephine) had dark eyes and bells on her reins.  She couldn’t have been more than ten hands.  He gave Josephine a quick pat before he realized that he couldn’t even recall his own name.  This particularly alarmed him and he sought harder than ever to remember the events prior to the present.
(Deadline, you’ll never make the deadline)
         His boss… David? … no, something like that, telling him that if he didn’t set out before the fist snows he’d never make Whorrlby.  So he had set out earlier than expected, his team hadn’t been able to acquire the same number of guards as usual, the men were unhappy.  Some had died on the way there, out of hunger, and out of cold. Finally, they had camped, and in the night… then what?
(Screams, calls for the guards, the guards running away)
He jolted upright in his seat, and cried out in agony.  Josephine neighed in surprise.  He looked down, and saw the arrow shaft in his chest, just below his sternum, and another just below his belt, deep in his hip.  He worked for a moment and finally managed to get a hand up to his eye, where he found a deep slash that began at the bottom of his eye and went all the way down to his jaw line.  He let out a gasp.
(Kenseth bringing him soup, Kenseth, face down in the dirt, an arrow in his eye)
He let out a moan at the death of his brother.  We knew it would happen, he thought, we knew the bandits were cleaning up before the winter.  Bandits were especially active just before the winter months, they knew that the caravans would be working double-time to get in final shipments before snows blocked the mountain pass between Luska and the capital.  But they decided to risk it.
It didn’t pay off.
I have to get to the nearest town.  He had no idea where that was, but he was certain that if he followed the path through these (Jared’s) woods, he would hit a town. 
And so he rode, gradually increasing speed, the canter, though smooth, still sending excruciating pain through his hip with every movement.
As the day wore on, the snows began to increase, and his focus began to waver, he couldn’t stay upright in the saddle, he hunched over, the arrow in his chest inches from his waist.  His eyes began to droop.
I can’t sleep; I have so far to go.
I can’t sleep; I have deadlines to meet.

Jacob’s eyes closed.

137555731
~Chris Rush