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Dreaming
Have you thought about it, the exceptional state
of consciousness we're living during the
nights? I'm obviously not referring here to
dream-fragments that can turn up when the
brain is cleaning up after a days work,
sorting things out for itself. No, I'm
talking about those other dreams, those
special dreams that comes to us as
messengers from within. When they come, when
you find yourself there, it's a bit like venturing into a parallel
existence, don't you think? As had you,
all of a sudden and much to your surprise, turned up
in a mystifying, outlandish realm, a place
unacquainted and strange in so many ways and yet,
yet you
can't escape sensing it has
this tantalizing hint of peculiar
familiarity to it, wouldn't you agree? When
you think about it thus, doesn't a dream
resemble a fabric woven by a mind, heart and soul
freely roaming about on paths undefined by the
ego, and, hence unrestrained, they can mould a veritable
amazing creation; a motion picture set out to envision the
animated truth of that
which is,
that which once was, and that which might yet come
about – if you just listen?
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Prologue
Fall came in haste that year.
Whenever I close my eyes I can feel it
again, it comes flashing through my body and
soul like a Demon reaching out in perpetual
despondency from a world beneath Hell.
I'm in the hands of a merciless,
uncontrollable force. Helplessly I feel the
grip of fear squeezing me ever tighter with
every move I make to break free. It's a force
multiplying by my every re-focus. It is as
though it has tentacles, feelers dripping
with venom who can sense my direction before
even I myself am aware I was heading that
way. This enables it to tantalize me
at my present position, while already lying in wait
for me when
I – in spite of it's petrifying perpetual
presence – have mustered a new tiny, fragile
hope and the smallest of courage to try entering yet another path I
pray will lead to my release, it's already
there, ready to ambush me. Each tentacle
snaking deeper and deeper within,
unrelentingly inflicting me with ever more
dread, insecurity, and angst. Slowly but
steadily, inescapably, it penetrates all
that I am, it drags me down into an
all-overshadowing oppressive darkness. In
the end I'm out of range, the grip so
tight now it makes the very
sky convert the air into a compact
mass of pallid suffocation. Unable to defend
myself in any way I have to watch myself get
wholly and totally cornered off from life.
It
all happened so fast, and so totally without any
warning. And so it stroke hard, gruesomely
hard. It was high
summer. Outside people were strolling by carefree
and easily, wearing light summer clothes, laughing, talking,
pacing slowly; it seemed they just followed
whatever whim came dancing through their
minds, went with it as easily and carefree
as the dancing whim itself. I watched them,
not having any specific thought about what
met my eye,
just absentmindedly liking how the blissful warmth
of the high summer sun slowed
down the otherwise so hectic and
goal-focused pace of life.
There simply wasn't any foretelling what awaited,
the soft summer breeze bore not with it even
the faintest whisper of warning of what abated just around the corner.
But
already the following day it hit; a dire
tempest horrendous beyond imagination came
upon us, all at once
and from out of nowhere at all. It ripped
the leaves off the trees like wanted it to
strip them of every fragile hope they
fearfully tried
to hold on to in a coat of leaves turned
autumn-coloured without anyone noticing, or
realizing it was this time of the year
already. It was as had a vicious storm been
brooding just beneath the summer surface,
lurking un-sensed, unseen,
portentously on the other side of the
membrane. And now it was upon us, a freezing cold gale unleashing its exasperation, a tempest
rising in rage and despair, as if, I
thought, it wanted to reveal a long hidden
fury, wanted to break free by ruthlessly
tearing apart and strip naked the
unsuspecting and unprepared trees standing
in its way.
The sky loomed low overhead, and
the world turned cold as if touched by the
hand of Death. A gale to chill the bones to
the marrow, to steel the breaths from the
lungs was ravaging the world. Anyone forced to go outside
walked with fast, goal-oriented steps,
leaning forward against the wuthering,
wailing, howling wind, trying to
get wherever they were heading as swiftly as
they possible could. I felt as was Horror no
longer just a feeling, but had it manifested itself into something solid, and now it was walking
the Earth, making it tremble. And yet, yet
my friend, if someone had dared to pause in this
fuming storm, even for just a brief second,
and if that someone then had, perhaps by
accident, looked about, he would've noticed
a curious glow in the air, a spectre in crimson,
gold and amber whirling chaotically in the
wind. A luminous glow in bright sunbathed
colours. That glow came from the leaves, who
had encapsulated the warmth and beauty of
sunbeams previously caressing their
surfaces in tenderness and joy, and now, as they whirled away to
meet their death, they let that loving light
shine on through in a breathtaking
intensity.
Yes, fall came in haste that year,
my friend.
Over night it changed everything. And it
brought with it another kind of fall: a soul
nightfall. It hit me as hastily and
unsuspectingly as the furious wind hit the naive
trees standing outside my window. When I
look back at it now, in the rear-view mirror
of life, it feels like it all happened aeons
ago and yet it is so close in my mind, as
were it still ongoing in the centre of my
brain. It's like everything about what
happened back then is enclosed in a parallel
universe; taking place in this very minute
and in times of yore, simultaneously. How
strange it seems to me now I couldn't see it
back then, I couldn't – or wouldn't? – sense
even the vaguest inkling of a shadow
petrifying and horrendous beyond words
already standing in the doorway. Oh yes, this was foreshadowed
to come about, in hindsight it all becomes
so clear to me. You see, I recognize
the pattern – it arises an ancient
echo deep within me, a fearsome sound-wave
resounding throughout everything that I am. If I try to tell you about it,
as truthfully, systematically and in as many
details as I can recall, will you understand
me? Will you understand what happened that
unblessed, ghastly fall, when God Himself
seemed to look the other way?
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