A Life

I was dreaming. But I didn’t know I was dreaming.
I dreamt about flying.
I dreamt about love.
I dreamt about exotic scented roses and brilliantly colored horses.
About eating the sweetest tasting morsels lying in the softest feathered pillows.
But I awoke.
And when I awoke I wondered how long I had been asleep.
An hour? Two hours? A day? Years? Centuries?
Stunned, I looked about myself for something familiar.
Is this home?
Can darkness even be called a home?
“HELLO!”
ELLo…
ello…
My voice echoes throughout the sanctuary.
“IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE???”
OUT there…
out there…
Somehow, I know that no one is out there, but hearing my voice feels comforting.
Reassuring.
I make strange noises to hear them boomerang.
“OBLADIBLADA!”
BLAda…
blada…
As fun as the game seemed at first, I grow tired of it just as fast.
I scold myself for even momentarily enjoying it.
How can hearing distortions of my own silliness possibly have any redemptive value?
I conclude that it has none and I begin feeling my way through the darkness.
Cold. Wet. Serrated. What kind of place am I in?
Frustration sets in.
Panic grips me.
“Ok, its ok, just take it easy.” I tell myself
I must relax and concentrate: where could I possibly be?
And then I hear it.
A rolling wave off in the distance.
WOOOSHHHH!
What was that?
WOOOSHHHH!
Has that sound always been there?
Why didn’t I hear it earlier?
WOOOSHHHH!
As I begin crawling toward the sound, I feel sharp edges on the ground that easily slice my virgin hands and draw blood.
If it wouldn’t be for the layer of maggots and grit blanketing the earth, which smelled viciously like stench-decay and broccoli, I almost wouldn’t mind.
The stench makes my stomach churn.
I swallow bile.
WAWOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHH!
As I neared my fascination, the vibrations crunched underneath me like thunder.
The hairs on my body defied the thick layer of blood that stuck to me and became erect.
Shivers crawled up my body like slow lizards and then down again.
Chills played my spinal cord like a xylophone.
And then I saw it.
A glistening sword sticking out of the wall diagonally into the ground.
I had never seen anything like it before.
Indeed, I had never seen anything at all before.
I had only ever witnessed apparitions and they never looked like this.

Blinded by curiosity, I became numb to the scratches and filth as the sword pulled me in.
Everything else escaped my mind.
Pain, understanding, rationality, all took the backseat.
Maddness gripped me.
I couldn’t take it anymore
Then it hit me: it had to end.
As a raging bull charges against the blood-red of the matador’s cape, I charged against the magnificent white light.
One of us will break.
At least it’ll end the awful smell of this bloody putrid pigsty.
But as I was expecting to be split open by its feather-line, razor sharp edge, I was instead stoned by the wall that it jutted out from.
Apparently, this was not the type of sword that pierces.
No, this was an illusion of a sword.
One that appears to have form but is only visual.
I passed my fingers through it and saw the shadows dance on the ground.
Strangely enough, it reminded me of my dreams.
But then I focused on my actual fingers, as I had never before seen them.
I felt a surge of happiness that I could actually see my own body.
I have a form.
I exist.
Those fingers are mine!
But then shame gripped me as I noticed their discolor and damage from crawling towards the light.
Nonetheless, it was a small price to pay for the satisfaction of knowledge.
Apparently, information has its price.

I turned my attention to the point in the wall where the light pierced through.
I noticed that there was writing on the wall.
As I peered closer, I read: “Whoever wishes to break this wall must use their head. Either the wall or the head shall break, whichever proves to be weaker.”
What a curious thing to write on a wall, I thought.
And I pondered it.
Rolling over its meaning in my mind.
What could it possibly mean?
WAWOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHH!
The sound jolted back into my mind
I positioned my eye to look directly at the sword’s hilt to see the origin of the sound but was met by pure white light that pierced my eyeball.
I flew backward in pain covering my eyeball only to land on what felt like dozens of erect two inch nails, cushioned only by creepy-crawly guts.
I screamed in agony and frustration.
How can I use my head when all I feel is pain in this hell?
I became reminded of the bull in me which demanded a blood-red color to ram its skull through.
The wall.
I lowered my head, closed my eyes, and charged.
But I didn’t hit the wall.

At first the only I thing I noticed was the lack of shards stabbing my feet.
Instead, they were replaced by something warm, soft, and grainy.
I jolted to a stop but was afraid to open my eyes.
From underneath my eyelids all I could see was red, colored by the extreme light enveloping me.
I formed a slit with my eyelids, which sent a fresh shock of pain into the back of my skull.
But it lasted only a second.
I opened both my eyes and fell down to my knees.
I was on a beach.
I recognized it from my dreams.
The clean white sand underneath me.
The sun above me.
The vast blue ocean in front of me creating waves; the source of the sound I heard in the cave.
The cave!
I turned around to look at the direction I came from and was all of a sudden surprised to no longer see the wall that I thought I had charged through.
There was only a small opening to a cave that plunged down into the earth, with only darkness visible from its eternally descending hole.
But my attention couldn’t linger any further on that miserable, destitute, false place.
I was in paradise! There was a feast awaiting my senses!
I closed my eyes and felt the warmness of the sun penetrate me.
Ecstasy shook my body.
My heart leaped in my mouth.
This must be The Good.
This must be what I have always dreamt about.
This must be the source of happiness.
I prostrated myself before the sun to worship it:
“I have found The Light! It is the answer!”
But as I opened my eyes to behold my beloved, I noticed that wisps of smoke began to separate my eyes from the sun.
The wisps of smoke soon became dark balls eclipsing the ball of fire.
“No! NOOO!! You can’t take her from me!”
But the smoke did take her, and the thunder took my shouting.
And instead gave me rain.
And it rained.
And it poured.
And it seemed like it was never going to stop.
Is this it? Must I now worship the rain?
Interestingly enough, I developed a liking to the rain.
It rejuvenated my skin and washed the blood and grim off my naked body.
What a gift! Truly, the rain is superior to the sun if it can wash away the filth and make my body look like new!
“Rain! I will worship you, I will give you thanks, and I will praise your everlasting glory!”
And then the rain stopped.
And the smoke cleared.
And the sun, which I just openly decried, reappeared.
Humiliation and rage gripped me.
I thought only the cave was false, but apparently I couldn’t trust the outside world either.
First the sun betrayed me, then the rain.
They both left me when I swore allegiance.
If I can’t put trust into anything, what am I supposed to believe in?

I hung my head in depression and gazed at the puddles on the beach that the rain left behind.
But I noticed something new now that the sun was shining again.
The sun was reflecting in the puddle.
And the light was forming letters.
I drew closer.
T…R…U…T…H
Words!
No! Not just words, whole phrases reciting theories, stories about far away lands, my innermost thoughts, and prophesies about time yet to come.
I was so sad to see the rain come, but I now understood its purpose.
How beautiful it made everything around me.
I still loved the sun for giving me light, but now I welcomed the rain as well.
So I made puddles my bed and called the bedrock my home.
I spent my days sand sculpting myself sand sculpting.
And when the rain comes and washes it away, I am happy.
For it gives me a new opportunity to start over.
“Home!” I proclaim, “Home at last!”