Falling Through A Simple World... Part One

What to decide when the pain rains relentlessly hard inside. The inevitable lurch of your stomach when you remember. Not through conscious thought but a blurred moment that washes across your mind's eye like silent soap suds in a slow motioned car wash. Then you are here somehow in the present. And it feels pointy and you don't like the way this hurts.

Not jarring and definitely not jolting. Just a heartless hollowness that hangs heavy. And it is not you. Your heart is warm and full. Charged by those around you, electrical impulses dancing in simple synchronisation. It shouldn't feel like this. A missed beat. A significant shift in life's rhythm.

WHY?

One minute so happy.

So high.

Light. Giddy.

Filled with heady helium happiness.

A warmth that radiates from within. So buoyant that each breath I take expands that exhilaration almost to bursting point. A new found freshness that courses through me like a sharp intake of extra strong pepperminty breath.

A week ago I was alive. Free from time. 

Everything I saw, touched, tasted and savoured encased with a sweet golden glow. The trees that breathed and swayed did so in harnessed harmony. The wheat fields bobbed and bowed before me. Gently beckoning: be one of us. I toyed with the idea of diving in between the sheaths of virgin green. To feel the scratchiness against my softened skin before collapsing, spine hard against the flat earth, shining eyes mirroring the vastness of blue overheard.

Inviting. There was no pretence. Just real. I didn't want to hide. I was almost out. I was so utterly present. On top of the world no matter where my feet stood. The smooth stone sculpture a calming coolness against the backdrop of sun drenched warmth. 

A tactile creature? 

Yes. 

But that means I feel.

I hurt.

I feel hurt. 

You sense the whistling glint of his arrowhead as it streaks through the air; anticipating the first hot metallic sting on your skin. And as it makes that first contact you feel the increasing pressure as it slowly punctures your first layer of love. You brace yourself. Pull your skin tight offering up a barrier. But he drives that point in. At first, you feel nothing. Too shocked to retrieve the scrambled message of pain. But it drives deeper. Down to the next layer. A penetrating single entry. Numbness no more. Driven home hard. Again and again. You get it. You feel it. You brace but you know that you will finally buckle. Crumpling under the excruciating pain of this unrelenting assault. 

You fumble for a shield. Protect your child. You come second. When that protection is ripped away, you do the only thing that is left. You reflect. Redirect those blows. Send them ricocheting off you haphazardly. You hesitate. Momentarily you question yourself. Where will this end? What have you done? But within that split second of doubt, there it was. The final blow. An arrow to the heart. 

And as I am hit hard, I feel a sense of swirliness as still-shots of my Odyssey flood my mind. Hills and vineyards. Plum red liquid rolling around voluptuous glasses. Gravel and grass. Liquid orange flames. Time to Wander. Pink. 

Two worlds collide into one. Sublime bliss  dissipating rapidly into this. 

And as I try to stem the flow, these vivid images begin to wash away and my colourful warmth fades to a steely cold. 'Don't contact me for four weeks,' I say. No emotion. There was more but I cannot recall the words or sounds because once turned cold, I harden. 
Feel no more. Defences up to protect my warmly filled heart. 

I take my child by her hand and lead her out into the darkened night. 

And we walk. Alone. Together in silence. 

Falling through a simple world. 



To be continued...