Chapter 5: flight; not over
Please note: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...
Upstate New York, late December, 2016
In her hands and her belly, Jules could sense his disturbance – flashes of flame, and deep black cold, like death, revolving slowly inside him. Drawing him downward into the crush of a giant black spiral. Down and down into darkness – away from the light far above.
She could feel him giving in.
Jules lifted him from her crossed legs, then back down to the leather couch. Silently in the darkness, she crossed the floor to the lights of her player. Another CD. It had to be that one for this. Its music would take them where she needed to go.
On her way back to Reese, she poked at the dying embers in the fireplace. The living room had turned so cold. She added a few more logs above the glowing coals, then slid herself in again, beneath his head and shoulders.
She could sense the tension there with her hands. A nightmare, a memory of some long-ago scene – something had captured him at the very end of her session. And now he was trapped in it. She was going to go get him.
Jules aimed the remote at the player and pressed the button to begin.
Solo piano lifted up in the darkness, against a breathy held note, weaving slowly at first, waiting while she readied herself – for this. She could feel his tension growing stronger, more urgent.
No time to lose now.
Swiftly, yet softly, she flooded light down through her arms, through her hands, jumping the space between them and his head, then flooding his skin with it. She could sense it winding around him with each breath. Each one drawing in the light – down, down – chasing down inside him.
And in the darkness around them, that sound of piano riding on a carpet of sound, surrounding them, reaching out, riding the light down inside, too, reaching after him just as she did. So far ahead, though; already down so far. She could feel cold rising up all around him, so cold on the surface of his skin.
And the blackness, too; crushing, silent blackness drawing him in – slowly swirling, ready to swallow him. She could sense all this inside him. And him, like a bird with a broken wing, falling in, unable to fly out of it.
Swinging wide, she could just see him ahead, fluttering, head down into the spiraling blackness.
Falling, falling away from the light, into it.
Like a falcon diving for prey, she flew down after. Wings folded in, chasing faster. Down through the center of the spiral, where it was darker and colder.
He tumbled faster, free-falling beneath her. But she drew her wings in closer, and dropped even faster. Wind in her face til she was gaining on him fast, braking hard then. Slowing herself with her wings, back arched, claws forward, swooping in. Clutching him, drawing him in close to her chest, swinging low with him, starting to rise, his back to her breast.
Lifting, flying, wings pumping – in blackness-turning-to-velvet sky. Soaring together, with up-turned eyes.
Reese was twitching under her hands, his head tipping back like he was looking to the sky. She could feel him in her hands, body stiffening as he was soaring. A soft moan from his throat.
So sudden.
Only a moment ago, he was standing with his rifle aimed at the man on the ground, finger sliding along the ridge of the trigger, his men backing away. Smoke and flames behind him, and the squeal in his ears from the bomb going off – strange that he could still hear that sound, the little cry from that little boy reaching out to the man on the ground.
Then turning to face him, those small dark eyes on him. Those eyes.
Reese felt himself lifting then, rising up, looking down at the scene as though floating above it. He closed his eyes. What had he done?
Turning away – upward out of the smoke and flames, toward a yellow glow barely seen in the gray. Lifting, held close, something warm and solid at his back, and air moving swiftly over him as he picked up speed. And such a stillness around him – the wind, and a deep, deep hum in the air, everywhere – even inside him. It was shaking him. A quiet roar filling him with sound, louder as he moved toward that yellow glow.
All he knew now was this deep vibration – and that he was a part of it – a sound more peaceful than he had ever been.
He turned his face into the sound, allowing it. It washed over and through him, wherever it wanted to go. Its sound like an echo inside, filling him, humming him down to his bones, filling his eyes with its soft yellow light.
The light and the sound. The light – was – the sound.
Gliding, held close by something strong – like claws; against something warm – like feathers.
Aiming for that deep yellow sound, far away. But closer each moment. Closer, with each wing-flap he felt.
Upstate New York, late December, 2016
Jules could feel him rising like a swimmer coming up for air, and then Reese sat straight upright, eyes open, breathing hard. He looked at the fire at his side, and realized where he was. Then he swung his legs around, and leaned back – relieved, she thought, against the tall back of the couch, resting there.
In a minute, Reese turned his head to face her. She could see how he had composed himself in that minute. How he was back already as his usual self. This persona was never very far, and he donned it like a uniform to present to the world. But she knew better.
She didn't look him in the eyes just now. He needed time.
She let him lead the way. She had no need to discuss things. Her work with him was done on a non-verbal level. Talking was unnecessary. A complication.
These things were difficult to explain, so she usually didn't offer. And Reese was not the type to want to talk, either. Things would work out.
His eyes were on the fire now. Watching the flames on the logs she had added. Dry bark made gray smoke above them. Some of it had caught fire, flaming up with heat from the orange embers below. They could hear crackling and snapping as fire licked along each log.
She watched him settle in. There was something grounding, settling, about watching a fire. As calming and grounding as walking barefoot in the grass, or through deep forest lit with sunbeams. Our deep brains find comfort there, familiarity and comfort so deep that we feel safe, contented, at peace.
Jules watched his eyes. He didn't let on what he was thinking. Perhaps it was nothing at all. Perhaps he was empty of thought, now, sloughing everything that had trapped him before.
It made Jules think of lines from The Book of Five Rings. In the Book of Earth, Mushashi said of the Warrior's Way: "Spirit is the thing that must be concentrated upon...The proper attitude of spirit must be constantly studied...When a man fights in real combat his spirit becomes fierce...You can only fight the way you practice...Through practice you will be able to properly maintain yourself at all times." She thought about this. And about Reese's descent into darkness. She had a sense that Reese had lost this thought.
As a warrior, Reese had trained for so long that he still retained his muscle memory. He could still handle his weapons, still scheme and plan, still defeat the enemy; but he had lost his edge. To be a Warrior, one must train every day, must practice his art, ceaselessly, so that the "spirit of the thing itself" judged one's commitment worthy - worthy of sharing its knowledge. If one abandoned his practice, then spirit would abandon the Warrior. And a warrior without spirit was no Warrior.
Another track had started on her player. One that Jules recognized as a perfect transition from the other. Slow piano notes, high up on the keyboard, plinked a hopeful theme on a deep layer of sound. It vibrated inside them, high in their chests.
It made her aware of her arms and hands. Still vibrating from the session with Reese. On her skin, she could feel the warmth, and the little electric sensations from the work. It would pass in time.
But the memory of flying, of the sense of cold on her skin, flying down after him as he was slipping away. It came back to her, sitting there. She closed her eyes and let it go. In her mind's eye, seeing him falling down the center of that spiraling blackness, into the darkness and the cold – she knew he was in trouble.
She could feel the sense of herself as a falcon, claws and feathers and fierce eyes – the fastest bird - tipping head down, drawing her wings in close to her body, shooting after him in the darkness, falling like a stone. In her mind's eye, she had seen him ahead, fluttering, tumbling, slipping away into deeper darkness below.
A metaphor, she thought. This was a metaphor for a warrior who has lost his way. And the fight to bring him back. This was real combat, and her spirit must be fierce to fight for this. Like a falcon, armed with speed, claws and ruthless eyes. It could be nothing less. To rescue a Warrior from the abyss of himself. Nothing less. Real combat.
And it was not over.