The next morning, instead of the normal jungle scent, the infusion of isopropyl alcohol tickled my nostrils, making me believe I was in the dark vestibules of a hospital. I gripped my neck as the alcohol overwhelmed me.

Breakfast I managed to spear down a squirrel and roast it over open flames. I spent most of my day eating it piece by piece, delicious, fatty meat relieving my stomach of acid tumult. The water tasted fresher too, so fresh it seemed I was drinking from God's fountain. As I poured water over the flames and watch smoke billow off of it, I couldn't smell a whisper of smoke. Just the alcohol.

Something weird was going on.

I furrowed my hair and scanned the campsite, but with no idea of what to do if an intruder actually jumped on me.

Then, the bushes rustling, and a woman emerged dressed head to toe in an aviator hat and sunglasses, skin milky either due to extreme anemia or a constantly shocked countenance. Her hair had been sprinkled with blood, and as she came close the alcohol stench grew stronger.

I covered my nose with my sleeve as the undulating waves of shock overcame me. Whatever this person is, it didn't look like she wanted to help me. As she came close, I raised my arms up, scoping the ground for stray sticks lying about, and froze when the figure lifted her head. Immediately a different scent approached me: sandalwood soap and freshly cut okra. My heart welled with warmth, and a lump in my throat impeded with my breathing. At that moment, it seemed like time became so malleable I had stopped it altogether.

Mother.

"Get away from me!" I could only shout, waving my sore arms frantically, wishing to myself this was only a dream.

She obeyed, flopping herself to the ground on the other side of the lake, silver-black hair floundering like a ripped kite in the breeze. Her flabby thighs knotted together, as though she was about to meditate. Then my ears caught mumbling, barely audible: "Stranded, you're stranded. Leave. Stranded, you're stranded. Leave," again and again in monotone, but with a hurricane gale force. Her matte rose lips glinted in the young sun, a shivering juxtaposition to when she wore the same shade to bring me to the bookstore every weekend just because I loved reading the comics.

Without the slightest consideration to what could happen, I picked up a smooth-faced stone lying against the cool lake water and hurled it at her direction, but missing by half a meter. Mother didn't even look up, and immediately memories inched up my spine, pricking at each of my vertebrae, reminding me of all those times she neglected me. Left me alone. I was left to rot, to die! And if the rift between us wasn't wide enough, she took her very own plane and crashed it into the Pacific. Her olive black eyes didn't dare move, which made me angrier.

"You don't belong here!" I hissed, uncaring if I made a significant din. Tears rolled down my cheeks, making my knees buckle and slap against the warm mud.

"Stranded, you're stranded. Leave," she continued.

"Leave like you did?" I sniffed, narrowing my eyes in her direction, hoping to shoot her down with lasers.

That's when the hooting boomed behind me, and a man clearing his throat, which sounded more like a garbage disposal than a rolling throat.

"You can't be angry at her Tsuki," said another voice, this time much more raspier but livelier.

When I turned around, still drenched in mud, there stood a man in a simple coat and a grin so big it could trump the sun's. A barn owl perched his shoulder, hooting excitedly.

"Father?" I asked.

"Remember that broken watch I fixed for your mother?" he said. "You'd always push the needle back in time, and we'd joke around that's how time traveling back into the past happened." His mouth curled into a smile. "I haven't realized... you can push the needle even without a time machine."

At what point in our lives do we ask the question: "who am I?" without sarcasm or considering the opinions of others? At what point did you feel every living atom detach from your body, rendering all the blood rushing through your veins useless, and deem every fragile moment where your dreams had been set in stone? Which every breath you took was ignited in your own fiery criticism? Every footstep you've ever etched against muddy roads, every action you've undertaken, everything you've done from point zero on the timeline, became a mere question mark: an ending which held mystery.

My fingers clutched at my shirt sleeve as if a turtle fearing the evils of the Earth. These mysteries.

I picked up a large branch against the fire pit and held it out in front of me. "G-Get away from me," I trembled, every word dripping against my tongue like hydrochloric acid.

"Remember what I told you about the moon," he continued, the owl chirping as though a spectator anticipating the climax to a gladiator fight. "Why don't you take a look at yourself?"

When I looked at my hands, I realized they had grown baby size, my strength faltering to hold the small branch.

The sky turned into a vat of fresh blood, replicating the scent of old pennies too. In that moment of utter fear and forced examination, I knew why I was here. I knew why the plane crashed, and why mother and father had been here.

"Stranded, you're stranded. Leave," she spoke.

Poor mother was right. I was stranded, enslaving myself within the fetters of my own thoughts, borne back into the past in a tug-of-war with the present. And it seemed I had led life after father's departure through a pinhole, watching myself slowly rot like a dead tree, hosting a wide variety of beetles and bacteria that slowly decayed all goodness remaining within my soul.

Suffering. Delusions. Hiding.

"Capture heart with an eye, not the pinhole," I whispered with importance, feeling my hands starting to grow again, followed with father's rewarding smile on his face, this time warm and loving, not sly. As the sky retreated back into its dark blue, mother and father's figures faded, a monotone voice giving the last few waves of prediction. The woods suddenly whistled a tune, a familiar one, which I then recognized was a Cambridge wind, carrying the bittersweet welcomes of winter, and the various non-returns of time which I've beaten into shape and paraded around with for a decade.

I lifted myself up without wiping the mud off, and sat criss-cross near the fire pit. I closed my eyes and felt the mud squish among my thighs. There was the alcohol, stronger than ever before, but instead of fighting it, I let it sit against my nostrils, feeling the call of home.

"My name is Tsuki Ito and I'm nineteen years old. I am a sophomore at Boston College," I heard myself say, feeling the mud turn a little less sticky. "I was born here in the States, hence my American accent, but to pureblood Japanese parents. My father had always cared for mother, an epitome of bittersweet love. Then their marriage went downhill..."

"Paula Clark had Max when she was eighteen, and even with a strong stature, I could she battlefields in her eyes. I still remember her inviting me to her home for Christmas, and it felt like the first real celebration I've ever had in years."

"And to you father... I hope you are living the life of your choosing in heaven. And mother, I hope in your last moments, you experienced euphoria," I said.

Before I opened my eyes, a cool draft of air hit my face. White flared at my vision. Two silver-black eyes stared in my direction, and as the blurred face came into focus, I recognized as Paula's.

"She's awake, nurse she's awake!" Paula squealed, leaning back so the nurse could take over.