Why and For What?

It was on a full moon that his mood finally snapped.
As the lure of pleasure finally became too much,
and he succumbed to the flickering of its intoxicating eyelashes.
Downstairs dinner was being prepared, it would be ready for 6pm,
as it always was.

Quietly he slipped out of the front door of the flat,
and headed into the darkness of outside.
Under the stars and the pull of the full moon he wandered,
not knowing where he was going. Just that he was.

After a few hours of darkness and rambling he came upon a large Elm tree,
that stood alone in a field.
Feeling drawn to the tree in some unknown way, he wandered closer,
and as he neared its mighty bark, he saw a small opening within its trunk.
He clambered inside.

Blue light shone upon his face, and as his eyes adjusted
he found himself standing in a clearing,
surrounded by trees made from brown wonder and moss on either side.
They flanked the opening like seaweed surrounds a rock,
each tree moving in patterns and making faces of its own accord.

Behind the trees he saw nothing but a darkness,
which he continued to stare into,
until soon he found himself unable to do anything else,
until suddenly he heard a howl cry out from behind him
and as he turned, he found himself face to face with a creature
that looked in every way his twin, but was also 'slightly different'
in a way he could neither describe nor comprehend.

The two of them stared at each other for a few moments
before finally he clicked from his puzzle face of staring
and asked the creature two questions.
'What is this place? And who are you?'
'Why and for what?' replied the creature rapidly, and without breaking his stare.
The creature then immediately turned away and ran from him at a great pace,
into the darkness that lay behind the trees.

He tried to follow, but found himself in a tanglement of unable to move.
The sky turned itself from blue to bright purple.
The wind began to blow hard,
and the trees shook horribly in recognition of this.

But soon they slowed, as the wind seemed to pause to catch its breath,
and as it did the darkness behind the trees turned from black to amber,
and all of a sudden he found himself back in the field,
lying beneath the Elm tree, the stars and the Moon.

He stood up and searched the tree for an opening. None he could find.
Bemused he wilted away from the trees and returned home.
As he walked he felt a great vacancy within his mind,
and a numbness within his limbs.

He finally reached home. The grass on the lawn,
the knocker on the door, had never looked so good,
and gladly he opened the door
and stepped inside, knowing that with time,
the vacancy would retreat and his body revive and return.