Files and Reality

I lay flat on my back, enveloped by patterned blue blankets and pillows. Staring directly upwards, I carefully map out every shadow on the grayish white ceiling, every bump on the dark blue walls, every inch of quickly-spun cobwebs where the blue wall meets gray wall above me, and how the shadow is cast at an angle in the corner. I memorize each and every detail above me, and every sensation in my body. I memorize how the sheets rub against my bare legs, memorize the soothing weight of the quilt on my torso, and how the faint air movement leaves a cold spot on my pale skin, where the dip of my eye meets the edge of my face, as a single tear traces my left cheek bone. It leaves the lightest smell of salt hanging in the air, that none but me could detect, and any would soon forget.

Not me, though. I refuse to forget any tiny sensation of here, and now. I mentally file tonight’s memory in the section labeled “truths”, across from the one labeled “lies”. I slide it into the portfolio titled May 24, next to the one labeled May 23. As I shut it, I will peek into May 23, and make sure nothing is out of order. I will check to make sure nothing is out of the ordinary, and search closely for dream signs that never appear. Then I take one last long look at the ceiling, and before I shut my eyes to release my final tear, I wonder how long it will be before I see my ceiling again, and I wonder if I will forget it, like one forgets a dream when they awake.

The last thing I feel before I fall away is a warm, salty water droplet slide down my cheek, and I don’t just feel it’s decent. As it falls, I am whisked away from my body, and my entire consciousness is filled with the sensations of the tiny trickling pool, The smell of it, the taste of it, the shape of it, the sound of it, and it’s very essence, and it’s purpose in the world as it slides away.

Gone

I was racing through the forest, to a place I had left long ago. My heart was trying to beat itself out of my rib cage. I had been running for too long, and it wouldn’t be long before I collapsed. If I fell, or if I tripped, all would be lost. Hundreds of innocents would die. Everything came down to how fast I could run, and how long I could stay up.  Just when I was starting to think all hope was lost, I burst out of the trees, and I barely avoided falling straight into a river, a river stained a translucent pink with blood. The haunting howl made by one’s final breath swirled around me, a morbid song that would never leave my mind. Savage winds ripped at my once white fur, now stained red and brown by my blood and the earth. The wind whistled through the towering snow-coated pines around me, creating an unsettling constant shrieking. The currents of air seemed to deliberately blow blood into my eyes, blurring my vision and making everything look red, not just the river, and the blood dripped from pools suspended above my bottom eyelids, leaving bloody tracks down my face like tears of blood. The taste of the red liquid sat bitter and salty on my tongue from the constant flow dripping down from my eyes each time I blinked.

I couldn’t stop now. I had to continue. The muscles in my legs screamed as I turned, almost slipped as my paws slid on the crimson ice, and continued my race against time. As I ran, my rasping breath burned my raw throat, and the freezing cold bit my nose with icy teeth. The blood splattered snow slowly turned my legs pink, then a deep scarlet as I plowed through drifts. I was so close. Just a bit further, just stay up a little longer… My mind raced with my legs, trying to remember the fastest way.  Also, my mind fought a desperate battle against a single thought.. The prophecy…

One sacrifice to end the wars... Unite who had survived... I lost the battle. The memory pinned me to the ground. I fell hard onto my side, and I couldn’t move, engulfed in fatigue, exhaustion pumping through my veins instead of blood. The words of the prophet of long ago… Time around me fell to dust, and I lost myself to the chanting.

The scent of blood fills the air

And fills the white wolf with despair

Wolves attacking

Ice cracking

Plunging dogs to a river soaked red

For the fierce

War wind blows

As the white wolf knows

This is why

The red river flows

The fierce gusts bring war and famine

The need to bite

The need to kill

But an outcast will rise

To end the pain

Of too much blood spilled

Red diluted under rain

The prophecy fulfilled

The white wolf killed

And life continues

With a world to rebuild

I had fallen just as I reached the desolate glade I had been running to. I had made it. Across the clearing I saw a man with crude features, and a large metal stick that smelled sharply of chemicals, pointed directly at my chest. In his other hand, he held a leather rope, with an off feeling about it. The other end was wrapped around the hands of a young girl, who smelled of fear and wind. An old instinct, built up over thousands of years bubbled up inside of me, telling me that it was time for what I had avoided at all costs. I struggled to rise, my legs shaking with exhaustion. With a pang of regret, I knew they would be numb soon. I dug my hind paws into the ground, and in a final burst of energy, I pushed off, soaring towards the girl. The wind that had tugged on my fur and my ears, trying to turn me back, shifted, pushing my onwards towards the leather rope and the path that had been laid out for me so many years ago. I only vaguely remember a loud noise, the tangy taste of rope as my teeth clenched around it, then were torn away, and being jerked to the side. The sound of my head hitting the ground echoed, and seemed far away. Sounds got fuzzy and I could no longer tell which way was up or down. As the howls of my old pack died away, the wind mellowed, dwindling down to a soothing breeze, and rain began to fall, washing my sides and soaking my fur so that it stuck to me. I like the rain, I thought slowly, struggling to reach such a simple conclusion as the world around me grew fuzzy, colors blending, until my vision narrowed down to a lump of snow stained a deep ruby red, then slowly the red blurred and I shut my eyes, a single blood-tear falling onto the fresh white snow, in a beautiful clearing under the stars in the middle of a forest near a river, the home of several packs of wolves, and the single tear would never be seen by any. It was just a bit, a piece of a broken memory, forgotten as soon as discovered, lost to all but a dying wolf, a bloody track left down the side of a face that would never move again due to the infractions of others. Slowly, my senses returned, though they had a different quality about them that I just couldn’t quite put my paw on. I only paused a second to consider this, then I shook my head slowly as if to rid myself of the bothersome thought. I unfurled my wings, flapped several times, and I began to spiral upward. As I left the forest, on a calm updraft, I looked down at a dead wolf, white with black paws, but stained brown and red with blood and earth. Poor thing, I murmured, and I left without a further thought, soaring out over the pink river where many wolves stood confused, and I flew far, far away, towards the sun, up, up, into the light.

Spirit Song
I am floating. Golden light streams through the luminescent water, bubbles rising around me. I drift aimlessly in the calm water, letting it take me where it chooses. The surface is far above, and I can see the light dancing and shimmering above with the waves and wind. My hair drifts about me, tickling my neck. Every move is slow and precise, but I seldom move, content with my peace of mind. The languid water’s slow current tugs me downstream. I am at peace, and time does not seem to touch my world. Imperfections and mirages swirl, creating beautiful shapes and runes.

My shape tingles, and the current pulls gradually harder, though still soft and soothing. Bubbles rise about be, tickling  my sides. A whirlpool spins me slowly, pulling me deeper into the water’s grasp. With the depth comes a wisp of memory, dancing outside my reach. It flits in and out of reach, tempting and distant. At last, it comes into reach, and I catch it. I absorb it, and warmth flows through me, comforting and strong. The warmth grows to hot, and I squirm. Searing and scalding it burns through me, until I can no longer bear it, and it is replaced with cool wind whistling in my ears.

The wind tousles my hair, crisp and smelling of pines. The cold air is welcoming, but the images are not. I stand in a forest, dwarfed by tall pines. Snow blankets the landscape, and wind, ferocious as a lion, tears through the forest, howling like a hound. Trees sway and bend, creaking and groaning.  The first of the howls pierced the air, haunting and desperate.

The sound lingers in my ears, and a chill runs through me. Soon many wolves are baying, howling in terror, rage and agony. The sound made by one’s final breath surrounds me, and I shudder again. A river races by, swift and terrible. The silent, icy-blue water is stained pink, then red. Howls still slice the cold air, but the forest grows dim, a mirage. Only the sickly red of the river remains, and this distorts, warping and blurring. Eventually, it too fades. The scene is gone, replaced by the warm, comforting water and tugging current stirred by rising bubbles. I am content to once again drift, and I float for another eternity before I stir again.

A feeling similar to the memory touches my consciousness. I instinctively reach out, and the feeling is soon caught. A chant begins to fill my mind upon contact. I loose myself to the words and pattern. The chant comes in another voice, eerie and beautiful, rising and falling rhythmically. My ears twitch, and I hear my own voice rising to join. As I sing, I know all the words I utter are true, I know it from the depths of my heart, from my very essence. Inspired, I tilt my face to the sun and let loose the song in my soul, chanting in unison with the others. The words flow through me like a river of gold, but the voices fade and the words are lost. The feeling leaves with the words, and I am left oddly empty, yet filled with remorse. My sadness is soon washed away by luminescence and warmth. I am comforted and secure, but something lingers on my peripheral vision. I stretch, and touch on it, for no more that a second, and I am left puzzled, but it is soon forgotten.

Bathed in warmth and joy, I continue to float along. Thoughts come and go, and I drift blissfully in my own world. I am spun to and fro in the wonderful light, but I am drawn to a something that cannot be found or seen. It bothers me, a thought that I can not name. I lean towards it,curios, and reach out once more. I touch it, and it is wispy and trailing, yet strong and eerie. It dances like the light of a flame, but is solemn and still as the night sky.

The thought that is and is not perplexes me, and when it begins to dance away from me, I follow. A new light surrounds me, not the gold but silver. It reflects off of bubbles, flickering and growing.  It is not unpleasant, but beautiful and graceful, yet unpredictable. The light, I come to see, is dancing. The light is dancing to a faint music.

The music is unsteady at first, but it grows more confident, almost foreboding, like the cry of a lonely wolf. The sound if one I had forgotten, and when the trailing music pulls, I follow. The song is one I had heard more times than I could count, but I cannot find the words, because they  do not lie away from me, they lie within. The song comes from the very essence of me, the depths omy soul, the blood in my marrow, and my heart, pounding to the rhythm.  My very spirit rejoices,, and I know that the song is not separate, nor is the emotion,  nor my spirit, my heart, my thoughts, or memory. The only thing that is separate is my body, and I push away from it, following my spirit song into the depths.

Time: What Could Have Been
A small face fills my view. A beautiful pup, one with a silvery, pink-red coat that so resembles my own stares soundlessly up at me. I watch my own tear fall, stuck in a moment that feels like forever. The tear rolls off of my pup’s coat unto a frost-bitten earth. Tears continue to flow into the snow, shining with the light of the moon, and I throw my head back to let loose the howl building up inside me for my only pup, born in the Time of Cold.

My cries echo endlessly through barren rocks and leafless trees. Words fill my mind, overflowing into my endless howl. Words strung together with such beauty that the wind stops to listen come to me, and I send them to the spirit of my child, with whom I would never spend another moment with.

You will never feel the sun

Never taste the trout from the stream

Hear the wolf cry

To the moon you won't howl

The feel of sorrow will never reach you

Pain will never hurt your small,

Unbeating heart

But before you go,

You have felt love

And this will guide you

But memory will stand strong

And I will remember

Time, what could have been, but never shall be.

Tears continue to flow, and freeze into the earth. I feel as though the light of the sun will never shine again, and if it should, its merciless heat will never outshine that of the small, flickering flame of my pup’s soul, now gone, extinguished by snow and cold. I am numb with grief, and my vision tunnels, filing down to the empty eyes of an empty body, lying in an empty world. I feel as if I am drowning in a sea that is sorrow, grief and pain. Endless waves of heartbreak crash down onto my small body, and I am choking on salty tears, floundering and drowning in anguish.

As I completely lose all of my will to live, a small light appears to guide me away from my own despair. The light dances, casting small shadows. It is not a hard light; it is warm and pleasant, but it is fierce. The small flame feeds on my hope, and it grows, hot and bright.The light skips about, the heat burns away the water that holds me down, and steam curls around me, banished by flames of life. warmth blooms inside me as fire dances, flitting around in a joyful manner, and I come to realize it is speaking to me. My pup is alive in the earth, the trees, the sky, and my howl as I let it loose in delight. My voice is not the haunting cry of the wolf; nor the harsh bark of the dog, but a clear warbling melody that dances with my pup’s flaming soul. The beautiful  sound echoes through the forest as the first breeze of spring tugs my tail.