Wishing. Watching. Waiting.
Glistening. Stretching. Fraying.
I am waiting, caught between the two large orbs that show me glimpses of reality, and the soft, pulsing light, filled with dreams, wishes and chiming bells; that dances into, out of and all around me; offering me everything, and nothing. I ignore the orbs and the light and concentrate on my surroundings.
The air is velvet black, but feels softer than silk. I notice that the air isn't just soft blackness; it is filled with a grey gloominess. It is somehow stagnant and not quite real.
Within the dark gloom around me I begin to see points of light; sparkling, shimmering, shining. They look like stars, no... they are stars. I realise with a start that I can see patterns, the constellations; they look as if they are watching me, waiting for something. I realise, abruptly, that the gloom and stagnance have disappeared, like fog on a warm summer morning, leaving only a crystallised blackness and the clean air of a cold, dark night.
The space around me feels endless. I take a deep breath of air through my mouth and the thick smooth flavour of vanilla fills my mouth and settles on my tongue. When I breathe through my nose however, I smell a roast dinner, the one I had at my uncle's house three nights ago, the mouth-watering flavour, cutting through the vanilla on my tongue.
I blink, and then close my eyes again, as suddenly I feel it. The air is humming; vibrating with something I cannot see, smell, hear or taste; only feel. But it is touching me not I it. Everything is straining towards something… I look down, and gasp.
I am standing on a platform connecting to both the orbs and the light by a single glistening thread, a thread that is fraying, rapidly. But, as I move towards it, I trip and fall, hitting the platform with a resounding bang. My feet are stuck, hopelessly tangled in the roots and vines of a delicate cream coloured flower, the source of the vanilla scent that coated my senses.
I tear at the plant that is ensnaring my feet, but to no avail. I whip around, my hair flying and watch in hopeless tears, as in a moment that seems to span eternity, the silver thread connecting me to reality snaps. The sound shatters into the emptiness around me. Quite suddenly, the humming vibrations that I felt in the air burst forward into an assault on all of my senses. A glaring red light that blocks out the stars; a tearing wail, that obliterates every other sound; searing heat that scorches my skin; an acrid smell that seeps into my lungs; and the taste of ashes, so strong, that it makes every cell in my body feel sick, envelop me as I am whisked into the swirling possibilities, of my own softly dreaming mind.
I am rushing toward something, yet my movement makes no sound. Instead, I can see and hear memories from my past. But I am also reliving them. I am tumbling through my memories with no regard to order.
I am at my ninth birthday watching the candle flames flicker with softly glowing light, thinking of what I will wish for. I can see the jelly cake trembling in the light from the candles, the surface glistening. The smell of burning candle wax drifts up to my nose, yet the smell is not unpleasant, it seems normal. I look up at my family, then back down as I take a deep breath then blow it out, extinguishing the candles and plunging the room into darkness.
As the darkness is pierced by light I find myself walking down the hallway of my grandmother's house. I am five years old. I tiptoe over a patch of floor in front of the lounge room door, perfectly aware that it has a habit of creaking when stepped upon. I raise my hand and gently ease the handle down. The door glides almost smoothly open, my sense of anticipation growing greater by the moment.
As I enter the lounge room I look around, and I am crushed by a disappointment so great it renders me unable to move, think or speak. He is not here. My daddy is not here. As I stand there, a living statue, a single thought gets through, he promised. Quite suddenly, I feel as if my world has cracked and through the cracks I am beginning to see the world as it truly is, a nightmare. Tears well up in my eyes but before they can fall I hear a voice.
"Turn around sweetheart."
Automatically I do so; and then I am running, and the few steps I have to take are gone in a heartbeat. Because my daddy is there, he has kept his promise and the cracks are disappearing, 'till they're gone without a trace; the light suddenly glares out at me and I clench my eyes shut. After the light lessens I slowly open my eyes, and look at my surroundings in amazement. I have reached the centre of my mind.
I am in the midst of a slowly swirling vortex of memories. Flashes of colour dance through the air as the memory of a long ago party in the rain swishes by, the sound of laughter trailing in the air. It feels as if I am in a timeless place, where time truly has no meaning, and a second could just as easily be an hour. I see the flash of silver thread and I am suddenly pulled into a memory of seeing the thread snap. It is all there, the vanilla scent, the smell of roast lamb and the stars.
There is a scent drifting through the air that I can't identify, it is a new scent. Looking around, there is a new depth to the blackness, and the stars shine out more brightly. I feel an intense longing to dissolve into it and my body responds to my longing in an unexpected way. I do dissolve, into millions of sparkling golden lights, then all but a single light race off in different directions, blending into the stars to create new constellations.
When my eyes open I know I will return to the heavens. They call to me in the bright, clear blueness of the sky, the fresh cool scent carried on the soft warm breeze that whispers in my ear and in the taste of stardust on my tongue as I walk down a hill and head for home.