Over, Under, Forward, Back

By: submission | July 3, 2026

Author: Starlight

When I was a kid – however long ago that was, ten years or a hundred, I wouldn’t know – when I was a kid, there was this game we did in nursery.
Over, under, forward, back.
The teacher would give us all a toy and have us stand in lines like little soldiers. She’d shout her orders and we’d follow them. Over, she’d cry, and we’d hold the toys over our heads. Under, and we’d drop them to the ground. Forward, we’d thrust them out like trophies. Back, and this was the tricky one, we’d pull our arms as far backwards as they went, so that the toy hovered somewhere between our heads and the base of our necks. She’d yell them first in order, then out of order, and sometimes she’d repeat them a couple times and a kid would get nervy and hold the toy up when they were still meant to be holding forward.
It’s a pretty insignificant memory in the grand scheme of things. Still, it’s a memory I cling to. A mantra I repeat to myself.
Over, under, forward, back.
The ground is heavy, aggressive, fighting my every move, threatening to suck me down and keep me there until my flesh disintegrates so that it may flower again. I can’t blame it, not really. I’m far from the first person to tread this earth, I sure as hell won’t be the last.
All around me is the same. Sodden mud, lifeless clay that clings with a dying breath. It’s getting difficult to distinguish which timeline I’m in, and I think I’m one of the few who still knows that there was a way to tell the difference once, by which I mean never. Memories can get hazy when your timeline is overwritten. I’ve long since forgotten the faces of my family and am more worried about forgetting basic human functions that I have never been taught.
Over, under, forward, back.
I press forward. If I recall correctly, and who knows if I have, there’s a pickup point not too far from here. They’ll lock onto my signal, and they’ll take me back to the barracks, and probably give me a dressing down for getting separated from my troop but how is that my fault when my troop forgot to exist?
Water falls from the sky at a rapid pace – there’s a word for this phenomenon, but it doesn’t come to me. I’m soaked to the bone. Was there ever a time when I wasn’t? Sometimes it feels like all that exists is the immediate, that only the now is immutable, that after is unthinkable and before is unidentifiable. I focus on my breathing, focus on my limbs pumping forward and back, focus on the weight of water against my skin and remind myself that I must exist. I cannot forget that I exist. If I forget then I am finished.
Over, under, forward, back.
I can’t go back. Can’t even look back – Scared that if I do I there’ll be no footprints. There is no back to go to.
Over, under, forward.
My vision tunnels – my eyes blurred by liquid that is coming from somewhere. There is ground beneath my feet. I march on.
Under, forward.
Where am I going? What is the point? Did I ever know? Did it ever matter? I can’t keep moving – there’s nowhere to go. Nothing exists past there here and now.
The ground draws at my feet, and I go under.