"Do you imagine walking head first into adversity will make you whole?"

LOST is a ten-page comic by Ares available for download here.

Stumble as you walk and feel your feet crumble. Understand friction, erosion, and the tenuous cohesion of the thing you call a body. You will not carve your way through the untamed forest; it will instead lacerate you. You will be reshaped by it; you will be chipped and cracked and evaporated. Your own transient spirit may escape your permeable vessel. Perhaps one was never bestowed upon you, anyway.

I enjoyed the well-cropped focus of the illustrations, the human constancy of a face being brought into question, and the sight of nature closing around the evidence of all passage-- save for the massive, or perhaps societal: the ashen fields. I do think that this exploration is comparable to the ending of Concrete Island, where the exertion of the will over the environment is paramount, where effective personhood is made only evident to oneself by taking control to the point of isolating futility. But a lack of control is featured here. This is not out of defeat; it feels to be more a familiarity with mortality and the limits of a life. The land is inhospitable, but the only viable response is perseverance. Your clay walks on. You may not leave a major mark on the world, but you might track some mud on the floor.