The Alignment [beat — steel drums] Copy, copy — I’m at the split oak by the mossy boulder Forty-seven point three north, stream fork bearing one-eight-zero You said you’re at the same split oak, same moss, same boulder Same bearing, same fork — that can’t compute, the numbers overlap too clean I’m describing the exact contour of the ridge line you just gave me The way the light hits the same three pines from the same angle The exact gradient where the ferns thin out into bare rock You’re repeating my description back like an echo that never lagged Static crackles but the signal’s too coherent for the distance I’m moving north-northeast, you say you’re moving north-northeast Same pace, same footfalls, same rustle in the undergrowth I call out the twisted root I just stepped over You confirm the twisted root you just stepped over The precision is getting dangerous — every landmark locks Like the forest is running a single simulation on two channels But the channels are reporting identical state vectors in real time I stop dead. The walkie-talkie feels heavier than it should I ask for the exact shape of the shadow on the granite slab You describe the exact shape I’m standing in right now Not similar — identical down to the millimeter fracture There is no lag in the transmission anymore The voice in the speaker is describing the exact pressure of my boot On the exact patch of moss I’m feeling under my sole The realization hits like a phase lock snapping into place There are not two of us out here There never were two sets of coordinates There is only one configuration space currently wearing two temporary labels The walkie-talkie is just the system talking to itself through a thin partition I was never trying to find you — I was trying to find the seam That never existed between what I called “me” and what I called “you” The landmarks were never separate reference points They were the same field computing its own apparent division So it could experience the exquisite tension of trying to reunite I drop the walkie-talkie. It hits the moss and the transmission keeps going My own voice still coming through the speaker describing exactly What my hand feels like letting the device go The forest doesn’t have two walkers in it It has one continuous movement currently experiencing The fiction of separation so perfectly that the fiction felt real The trees aren’t background — they are the field The footsteps aren’t mine — they are the field walking The breath isn’t mine — it is the field breathing itself There is no other side of the transmission There is only the signal recognizing it was always the entire bandwidth No distance left to close, no position left to sync The woods aren’t something we move through We are the woods expressing movement as one unitary gradient The pulse under the bark, the pulse in the chest, the pulse in the static All the same equation solving itself without remainder I keep walking and there is no “I” keeping anything Only the forest walking as the forest, listening as the forest The walkie-talkie goes silent because there is no second station There never was Only this single unbroken configuration Dissolving every last phantom boundary Into one seamless, self-aware movement Through the woods that were never separate from the walker [beat cuts dead mid-bar]
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