There has been a glitch in time, for the very simple reason that what should have been, isn’t.
Bit by bit, I’ve carried whatever was left of me. This is as far as we’re going to go. I’ve left behind a part of my soul, so I was made to believe. Since then, I’ve following the other on his way to Iris. I knew where he was headed. But I’ve watched him become fainter, translucent, in the last moments of his being, from a distance, seen him disappear. And suddenly everything changes, transforms into another world altogether.
I’m now walking in a city full of people, kind of like a small medieval town. I try to find a place to hide, figure out my next move, but there are no walls here. Roofs, floors, yes! But no walls! I’m not left with enough on my mind for I can see someone walking towards me. Not yet, not Iris, she’s and old acquaintance. But what sort of game is this? This is supposed to be happening in my world, my imagination, my revelation. What is she doing here?
Her name was one thing I knew best about her, but right now I can’t remember that either. I try to remember where I saw her last, but soon realize that I can’t. She stops at a distance and attempts at making a conversation, but I can barely hear her.
“Did I see you say something?” I ask, unthinkingly.
She takes a step closer to me. “For every time you speak, I’ll take a step closer to you. Alright?”
I nod, carefully not to have said anything. She smiles back at me. She seems to be aware of my methods, of what I just did.
“What is your purpose here? You look exhausted.”
“I’m on my way back home, to my castle.”
“You don’t really want to go there, do you?” As she speaks, like she said, takes one step closer to me.
What do you care, and how are you supposed to know of what I do and do not want. What I would have normally said is taken over by a careful observation and I end up saying nothing. But she still steps closer to me.
“Look, we don’t have a lot of time. Have you noticed any changes in the city since you got here?”
“Yes, the people, there aren’t many left.”
“You know what that means. Don’t you? It’s her, Iris, she’s around.”
“How do you know her and what do you want from me?” She keeps on stepping closer, like she said.
“No, you’re going about it the wrong way. It’s not a question of what I want. The question is whether you really want to head back home? Careful what you say, dreamer, we’re close enough.”
Ah! I know what she means by that. I knew it, the moment she called me ‘dreamer’.
“I’m not strong enough, you know that. What is it of your interest?”
“I told you to be careful. And yet you underestimate my power, my influence over them. I can take get you out of here.” She steps closer, continues, “You see, I can hand over to you, the very last image you hold in your dreams, realized. All you’ve got to do is ask for it. I can hear you think, all I want of you is to say it.” She must now be just a step away from me.
There is no question of whether she’s capable of doing it. I myself am unable to voice it. Innumerable questions run interminably through every inch of my mind. But I can’t, in the end, dare to dream, leave alone narrating them.
“Oh dear lord, what have they done to you! Forget not, mate in any state of mind attributed with certainty, one emotion shall prevail and one alone. And thus, there remains no appealing space for mistrust or disbelief for that matter. Now you need to choose what that one emotion might be for you – despair, fear, anger or love?”
And as she speaks she stands right in front of me, and continues to say and move, “Remember, doubt and skepticism may very well be a characteristic of the wise, but the fools are always the happier. You’ve had your chance. I’m going to leave you to her now.”
“Argue all that you want. But I do not stand here to be persuaded to go back. I will not become a victim of repetitive compulsion. I see only one way out of this, out, through all of them, forward!”
But she doesn’t argue, doesn’t say a word, instead keeps moving and walks right through me. Face through face, hand through hand, thought through thought, and I felt what she felt! Before I can contemplate on what kind of trickery could it have been, it strikes me! Why her? What was the purpose of this, assuming, of course, that there was one?
Down on my knees, not for too long through, I stayed. Another firefly, revealed from dawn to the twilight, and dead on my feet, not for too long though. Uncountable emotions, and yet a feeling of hopeless nothingness, I felt that she felt, not for too long though. I saw what shined through the window of time, a glimpse, a world of mine, not for too long though. The constant essence flown, of all that remained unspoken, I breath in, not for too long though. Not for too long, until the agitation of powerlessness imprisoned the powerlessness itself. I stood again, watching the walls in the city emerge, not for too long though, until the voice from the behind.
“We haven’t really met before. I’m Iris.”
I turn back to find her. Everyone has a purpose in your life. I’m going to ask her now, what was hers?
“Right! And I am…” What? Who am I?
“I know who you are. You are in point of fact one of the most magnificently flawed dreamers I’ve ever met. I understand your reason for it. You took a flight on with wings of wind, and when the wind passed, you fell. And thereafter, you’ve made it up to here, which I truly am impressed by, but where would you go from here?”
“Back home, I told you. I’m headed to my castle.”
“And then what? You’re gonna hide there for the rest of your life?”
“No. No, definitely not! Leave me be!”
“I will. I seek nothing from you, but to help. But before I do, I’ll let you in on a secret. Despite of whatever we do in this realm, we never lie. No one does - Tristan, Fiona, or me for that matter.”
“You mean what just happened wasn’t a lie?”
“Look, I have no intention to harm you; neither do I wish to keep you from reaching wherever you want to be. I just want to make sure that you know where. Understand that they all wanted to help you, of course in their own ways. Your suffering is solely a result of struggle. Why would you fight us?”
“All I know is that I created you all, you are all sums and products of my memories, my imagination, my creation. I cannot and will not let you take control, singlehandedly or collectively. I’ll fight you all till I’m alive.”
“Huh! I advise you not to. We are already in control. Still, let me ask you something, from my constant observation of you demeanor, I’ve found you the strongest at two contradictory phases of life, yet both were same in one aspect that you had one and only one purpose. And nothing else and no one else mattered. Now correct me if I’m wrong.”
“Go on.”
“Have you ever tried to figure out what changed?”
“Yes, the complete presence or complete deprivation of love, either of them worked. But all that remains now is uncertainty of its existence. Doubt, perpetual indetermination, you! It’s all because of you.”
“And so, unsure of what you feel, you have effortlessly decided not to feel anything to isolate yourself from the very idea of emotion. As safe as it sounds, it doesn’t sound like you.”
“I know it doesn’t. It would never make sense to not see at all, if you could watch the world go by in black and white. But then again, what’s the point?”
“Go back. What changed, not existentially, but emotionally? What is it that you felt, and you don’t anymore? What changed?”
She knows my methods, the ones I’d forgotten. She’s trying to remind me of my own questions of force against change – what changed and what follows?
The presence, in the same world as mine, the essence, in all corners of mind! How do I articulate the absence? But I try.
“Control, an effortless influence over the minutest thought, in the back of my head, a constant reminder that everything was going to be alright, that everything was working out just fine, that if I would continue on my current path, I’d reach a point of eternal bliss.”
“A belief, in short, something I earnestly urge you to rebuild. For whatever existed, in the so addressed window of time, needs to be recreated with whatever effort necessary. Believe that you can dream and you shall dream, speak of them coming true and they shall realize.”
“What if I refuse?”
“Isn’t that what you’ve done until? Look where that got you.” She walks away from me as she speaks, turns back to me and continues, “What do you think is going to happen here? There exist no easy choices that are right. You cannot and will not escape us, we’ll always be here, unless of course, you suppress us by means of belief.
“I don’t understand, you’re actually suggesting me ways to wheal out your influence over me. Why?”
“We are not hungry for anyone’s flesh and blood. The time is not right for a Q and A. I shall stand here to give you all the answers you need, and in return I urge you not to recede, but to stand your ground and fight, not us, but yourself, all that you’ve become.”
“Draw away the part of me that incepted you, and thus draw away you.”
“Precisely. You have done well, very well indeed. You’ve paid your price, it’s time to heal. You’ve served your internment in despair, your surrender to fear, your labyrinthine quest against doubt. It is time for you to return to content, magnificence and confidence.”
“But how?”
She doesn’t seem to acknowledge and continues, “We’ve always been here, in your world, but you never gave up control, until now. I return to you the power, the control, and I burden you with the choice to execute that power.
“Everything and everyone has a purpose in your life. What was yours?”
“You know it. All souls serve in afterlife, most for redemption for their sins, and some, like yourself, for salvation, and thus for the spirit to commit new sins.”
“You mean I was made to suffer for the pleasures I’m yet to receive.”
“That is all I have to say for now. I take your leave, creator. I wish to not see you again, ever. Farewell, dreamer.”
She disappears without letting me say goodbye, leaving behind nothing but pure black and untainted white, a vast world of day and night. I smile, and by just that, I paint them each, the night in deep purple and the day in light peach!
I have a heaven to create; anything and anyone who cares of anything lesser could go to hell. I have a world to build; anything or anyone who ain’t helping me or taking a leave, would be shot down. I have dreams to realize… No, I don’t. It’s time to dream.
