Fantasia
I stared listlessly at the darkness beyond my window, the faint reflection of my face in the glass, and nothing else. The canvas was almost entirely black, the monotony broken only by the occasional glimpse of my more prominent features; the bridge of my nose, the jut of my jaw, the furrows of my brow in the limelight.
Only the left side of my face was visible, bathed in light by the delicate flicker of a lightbulb. Once or twice I caught sight of a glimmer in my left eye, cornflower blue lost in shade. I had become The Phantom, my opera now a chorus of internal chatter.
After mere seconds or an entire lifetime, I grew tired of reflecting upon my reflection.
What good could come of this overthinking?
I lurched from my seat and moved to kill the light, but the bulb beat me to it. The glass shattered with a quiet ‘bang’, and left me floating in shadow.
How wonderful, a private supernova for my eyes only.
I felt privileged to witness such a performance… for all of one second. I took a deep breath, then decided to answer the call of my mattress. As I undressed I felt increasing judgement, bordering on a slight anxiety. There was no one else in the building and yet it was as though eyes pierced me from the corners and crevices of the room.
I slid under the comfort, protection and care of the duvet.
Jesus Christ, that hurt! My palm… what the f**k is in my palm?
I remained blind but was certain that this was not my bed and I was not in my room. Relaxation had morphed into anguish that repeated itself three more times; in my other hand and then in each foot. The pain ploughed into me from nowhere. A suffering unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Agony and throbbing flooded through my extremities as each was stretched outwards until I stood in an ‘X’ position. My limbs felt stunted, weaker, strange – almost childlike.
Where had my calm cradle gone?
The sudden blaze of overhead floodlights soon answered my question. Tears had long-since filled my eyes, yet I could still make out the blurred image of my bed being wheeled through an immense metallic door. A great grey door in a great grey wall in the expanse of a great grey warehouse. It was a museum of fantastic, suffocating dullness.
Tilting my head backwards I could barely make out the roof that soared high into the heavens. Through teary eyes I saw her. That radiant maiden. Her face had an undeniable glow, her smile the delightful centrepiece. The remainder of her appearance was irrelevant – all that mattered was that delicate smile and those kind eyes. When she kissed my cheek and wiped away a droplet I forgot about the stakes in my hands and feet. I forgot about my distress and confusion. She would protect me.
Lost in the allure of this woman I had failed to see the shadows closing in, encircling. It was only when a featureless hand fell upon her shoulder that I sensed the threat. Before I could protest she gave the silhouette a knowing nod and exited the door that had swallowed my bed.
The lights that hung from above intensified, causing me to squint. In a haze, I was twirled around by the faceless figures and met with the sight of a thousand other children who had also been nailed to their own personal saltire. They faced forward, their gazes hidden from mine, but I could hear a chorus of fretful breaths and I saw a sea of squirms. They all wore black; black belts matched with black shorts matched with black shirts matched with black futures… trapped within this great grey warehouse. A truly vibrant image.
All were arranged in equidistant rows and columns, a chessboard where all the pieces were pawns.
Some may have called the symmetry artful, a genius expression of the mind. Some.
They wheeled me into position in a tight gap at the back of the arrangement, my wounds still pulsating.
This is Hell.
As those firm hands slipped off of my wooden cross and left me in place, a different woman stepped onto a dais at the front of the assembly. She was not golden, but rather dressed in a rustic brown overcoat. Where she had been luminous, this new woman was plain. But what warmth she lacked in appearance, she made up for in voice.
As she opened her mouth, hypnotic lullabies filled the air, enchanting my peers like a Siren on jagged rocks. Grace personified. All were amazed. All, that is, barring myself and a freckled girl with fiery hair a few rows and columns away. As the others listened in awe to that sweetest of music, my partner and I raged against the bars that were hammered through our skin, bone, tendons, and muscle. Agony erupted, butt it was worth it a thousand times over. I would sooner die than join these mindless drones.
Predictably, the silhouettes returned to my side and that of the ginger girl, the girl ablaze. That inferno was soon extinguished with horrendous ease, scissors sweeping like scythes to strip off the red river flowing from her scalp. The fight went out of her as I continued to writhe, doing so until I felt a sharp piercing sensation in my neck and then a weakness flooding my consciousness. I was simultaneously struggling and submitting, alert yet drowsy.
I will rage against the dying of the light. I will rage… I will…
An unknown length of time later, I forced my eyes open and prayed that the nightmare was over. I yearned for my blanket. I must have still been dreaming - no waking moment was this grim, grisly, and bleak. Still adjusting to the glaring light, I felt the iron nails that held me in place and the course wood chafing my skin.
Have mercy.
I fully adjusted my vision to the sun’s rays that were beating my naked, sullen husk of a body. I found myself on a mound of dirt, scarcely covered by clumps of crocodile-green grass. Around me was a barren wilderness that floated off endlessly.
Two hills broke the uniformity, standing a mile or so in front of me with a cavernous valley between us. Each stood perhaps half-a-mile away.
A bizarre sight lay atop each of these mounds, familiar structures crowning them; on the left, my childhood home and, on the right, the church I had once attended.
In my confusion, I had almost forgotten the burning sensation pulsating from my hands and feet. Two winged demons swept in from behind me, landing one on each hand. A stunning mural of crimson and gold on the right, a haunting ghost of onyx on the left. A Phoenix and a Raven.
Half in desperation and half in dread, I screeched in an incomprehensible tongue, crying for help and hope. The Raven twisted to look directly at me, through me, revealing one twinkling eye and one empty socket. I felt a rush of heat from the other direction, turning to observe the Phoenix, the bird now suddenly ablaze. It was brilliant, ecstatic.
My admiration was soon charred to ash as my skin blistered, drawing more shrieks from my heavy lungs. The piercing sound sent both birds flying in a haze of black and red.
Tortured by the nails, scalded skin, and my own weight, I looked on weakly as the creatures soared towards separate hilltops. Torpedoing, they streamed onwards and onwards until violently smashing into the church and the house. It was cataclysmic, thrusting me backwards into the cross that bore me, briefly lifting the punishing weight from my wounds.
The church, which had been drummed into by the Raven, was now veiled in an impenetrable dust that grew, soon towering high into the heavens. As that smoking monster swelled and rose, its brother awakened. What had once been my home now became a furnace, hissing and howling against the smog. Light and dark intertwined, mating and warring all at once.
Exhaustion took hold of me and I lost my thoughts and feelings in the titanic battle. There was no let up until the sun, a powerless bystander, dropped below the horizon, still trembling.
Night reigned. Silence presided over the wilderness I found myself in. The stars scintillated in the sky, painting the story of the cosmos in cryptic myths. Behind those dwindling fires there was an inky quilt. The constellations were gleaming beads sewn onto the darkness that gave me an inexplicable drop of hope. A drop that grew. And grew some more. Perhaps it would soon fill me completely and perhaps it would not. Regardless, I left behind all concerns and fear in that moment, focusing on the cosmos.
The dread of further punishment, something I had previously been washed away with, had dissipated. I was present.
No wonder the stars inspired tales across all eras and cultures, from Aboriginal Dreamtime to Ancient Egyptian mythology.
In that darkness, consumed by shadow, my spirit had risen. My breathing, previously so laboured, returned to a calm tranquillity. I felt lighter. I felt an emerging freedom. As the returning sun swept away the stars, I was reminded of the battle that had taken place the day before. In the obscurity and majesty of the night, I had lost both sight and thought of war. Now I remembered as my gaze fell upon a pair of lifeless, decrepit ruins. Debris covered the leftmost mound, whilst its opposite was naught but charred, half-eaten walls and impenetrable black. Two shattered faces, once glorious and comely, wailed at me from across the barren valley.
And I was no longer alone. Warm smiles shone up at me and smooth hands held my weight. Physically and mentally drained, I had believed it to be an illusion, the dark seemingly playing tricks on all of my senses. But I was wrong. They had been the hope that had trickled through my soul. They would free me from the horror. Desolation and salvation had hidden side-by-side in the obscurity of that night.
The pain of removing the stakes in my hands and feet was nothing compared to the relief of being released from that cross. I collapsed face-first into the dirt and dug my fingers into the dusty earth. I inhaled deeply, collecting as much dust in my lungs as fresh air, but it mattered little.
I wretched quite disgustingly, unintentionally signalling to my friends that I wanted water. My lungs, coated in filth, felt more open and more pure than I could previously remember. Bringing myself to kneel, head rocking backward, I poured the water carelessly over my face. Some quenched my thirst, some cooled my singed forehead, and some merely cascaded over my naked body. I’m sure my saviours didn’t see the tears that were lost in the waterfall plummeting onto me.
The nightmare appeared to be over, but the dream continued. They helped lift me up, though I struggled and stumbled under the weight of fatigue. Casting an eye back to the wastes atop the hills I spied a silhouette upon each.
I turned to the man over whom I had wrapped an arm, his face so comely. He nodded in silence, allowing a faint look of joy to appear in his expression. It was only fleeting, yet I was certain of its existence and meaning. I stepped forward and we began an arduous, taxing journey down the valley and then back up.
I was out on my feet, resting almost all of my weight – both bodily and emotional – upon this nameless Samaritan and his jubilant helpers. When I could carry myself independently my movement was sloth-like. In the bottom of the basin I glanced up at the climb that was still to come and considered resting there, but I found courage in the memory of the ground that I had already covered, ignoring the fact that that had been downhill – it was still progress.
If I stop now, I will never start again.
At the summit of the first hill, upon which had once been a church, I was met with a loving gaze. It held me, warmed me, and released the soreness in my entire body. The gaze belonged to a magnificent statue, carved with intricate detail and delicate precision. The man it depicted was dark-skinned, had flowing black locks, and a grand beard covering his cheeks and chin. Through that bush of hair, I made out a tender smile matched in his walnut eyes. I knew not who he was, yet his message was clear. From his core pervaded an ineffable benevolence that resonated deep inside my own heart. On his outstretched arms perched two diminutive birds – that very same Raven, now paired with a snowy Dove. In opposition, yet at peace. I laughed with love and delight. I knew where I needed to go and whirled towards the other mound.
The hike from one top to the other was marvellous, each of my steps along the way creating a ripple of green growth in the earth around it. As I energised the terrain it rejuvenated me.
Just before completing the climb I swivelled to look across the wilderness; it had exploded into a fertile savannah, a veritable nirvana. I had ventured from the bowels of a ferocious, malicious beast to the cradling arms of a gentle mother. A handful of steps followed and I was there, the mountain had been conquered.
There she was once more, that radiant maiden, waiting. Bathed in light, she stood outside my rebuilt house, somehow restored to its former glory. I hugged her tightly, intending to never let go.
Home.
My eyes opened gradually, the bedsheets wrapped snugly over my body. They were temporarily blinded by the light shining through my window. Regaining my sight, I glanced at the shattered bulb on my desk and then at the branches bustling in a breeze outside my window.
Morning.