by Gabi Moore
Some content works for the destruction and degradation of other things, and other content works to rebuild. These sorts of things work cyclically, which means that for any progress to be made, there needs to be a certain level of destruction.
The difficulty comes not in accepting the components of destruction which are necessary to move forward, but in the way that we ourselves participate in destruction. What I mean to say specifically is that some destruction is fetishized, while other destruction is done out of carelessness.
As I lay floating in the void, a soft glow pulsed around me. I felt protection and a certain level of sacrifice given on my behalf. Something was protecting me from whatever elements were out there in the shadows. Large serpentine creatures swam past me, and inspected my body. I could not see them, but I could feel them. I could feel all things pass by me, and I had the freedom to reflect on their nature.
Even the monsters of the deep; creatures fierce and powerful from dimensions far away from the place where I grew up, you couldn't apply the concepts of good or evil to these things. The paradigm needed to accommodate them simply wasn't large enough to be effective.
There is a creature the size of a Leviathan who has just swam past a naked, floating body.
A body now bounces along the wake of the serpent.
There is no pain.
A soft, warm glow radiates from the inside of the vessel.
There is no fear.
Time itself has ceased to hold any meaning.
Attachment to the world of the living is absent.
There is no realm of the dead. The vessel floats in an amniotic stasis in the Bardo between the realms.
That last thought echoed around in my mind for a while, pushing me along toward whatever reflections may be forthcoming. From that point, I moved into nostalgia.
I thought about all of the relationships I had been fortunate enough to have, and all of the pain that was associated with each of those relationships. Every single time I had grown close to somebody, there was this feeling of total and complete betrayal. The sadness was profound, and then I realized that there was no reason for the sadness, or the anger, or even the joy.
Holding onto those concepts was about as realistic as holding onto those friends.
If relationships and emotions are impermanent, and all of my states of mind are impermanent, then what is this thing that is holding onto me?
I looked down at my body.
That same body that I had reviled and despised throughout all of my experiences. That same body that had carried me when I had needed to achieve some pressing and ultimately futile goal. That body was outlined in light, a small, slow light that came out from the inside of my chest, and pushed me forward through the darkness between realms.
Light, of that sort, can only be called hope, because it refuses to part, even when all sensibilities indicate that reality should be otherwise.
Would I retain this light if I had been eaten by the Leviathan?
The thought bounced outward, but no response came back. No verbal response anyways. The light, on the other hand, continued in spite of my question, and I felt both petty and childish at the same time.
At that point, I realized that I was in a place that had been designated for myself, by myself. Or, at least, I realized that this might be a possibility.
I started to unfold myself, pushing my shoulders around a bit, and turning my neck this way and that. I wanted to try and wake myself up. To see if I could push my existence toward something different. I wanted to know if it was possible to move myself through space with the same freedom as was available for my mind to reflect on whichever topic came to mind.
My body unfurled, and I directed myself like an arrow toward somewhere, anywhere that the light would grow, and this awful, terrible, oppressive darkness would be forced to subside. The thought itself modified the world around me, and I saw in the distance a clear reflective shimmer, the faint bit of hope that there was more to be found.
Traveling toward the light was easier than I thought. My body began moving upward of its own accord. There was nothing stopping me any longer. All I needed to do was push forward, and I was propelled by a force from within. The environment itself wanted me to move forward. I was being guided by the hand of fate.
The water around me grew less dense, and then when I reached the surface, I found that beyond the surface, was a brilliantly colored sky, full of pastel pinks and oranges. The light around me faded in the face of the light from without, and the temperature of the water dropped to a point where it was barely comfortable. Something changed around me, and suddenly, I realized that I was no longer floating in-between realms. I had in fact surfaced in one of them.
The air in my lungs came in gasping mouthfuls, and the water on my lips tasted like salt. I looked down at my body and saw that I was no longer a Demon. However, I was neither Fae nor Human at that point.
There were strange anatomical differences that were incongruent. I tried to place myself, and soon became overwhelmed and anxious. I began to panic, and the full awareness that I was a vulnerable creature once more, and too far from the shore for personal comfort. Moving my body now, and finding coordination once more, I began to swim through the water toward the shore.
Initially, I didn't make much progress, but I managed to figure out my coordination, and soon enough was making steady progress toward having land under my feet. The only time I got creeped out was when I remembered the sensation of the serpent that had passed by me when I was floating in the water below. The memory brought more than a bit of anxiety to my mind, though I didn't have the luxury of focusing on those fears at the moment. I had a solid trek to get through, and I was fast running out of stamina. My body felt like I had just woken up out of a dream, but the problem was that I did not feel nearly as refreshed as I would have felt after a solid night's sleep.
Quieting down my mind, I limited my activity to a series of motions. First focusing on pairing up alternating movements of my hands and feet, and then working on allowing my body to move fluidly through the water in its expression. Once I started to utilize more finesse, and let the abrasive anxieties and lack of coordination wear off, I made fairly steady headway toward the shoreline.
By the time I got closer, I was able to catch a few waves in, by surfing along the contour of the waves with my body. Feeling like I was propelled enough along the surface of the water by the currents themselves was a massive relief. The rush of the water in my ears, and the sound of the waves crashing around me was a beautiful sensation. The feelings that ran through me were more of a refreshing, and calm baptism, than the pain of uncertainty.
Each wave that I rode passed through me, until one of them carried me along and deposited me ungracefully on the shore. My body slammed into the sand, and I rolled beneath the final expression of the wave. The sounds around me changed to a soft hiss, accented by the sound of birds overhead. As the water receded back into the ocean, I felt the wet sand lodge itself in my armpits and hair. My body sank into the sand of the beach, and I absorbed the rays of light overhead.
Looking up overhead, I saw that there were not one, but two orbs of light in the sky. The second sun was a brilliant violet color. Colors changed all round it in gradients away from a pure bright center. The contrast between the two suns brought out strange burnt colors in the atmosphere like I had never seen before. Another wave rushed over me, and water poured into my nostrils. The feeling was abrupt, and unpleasant, so I stood up, and got my bearings.
My body retained elements from all of the different forms I had experienced thus far, though the overall combination was not terribly impressive.
My skin was fleshy and pale. There were no protective scales, or luxurious natural tones. A quick look down at my hands and I realized that my claws had diminished from their weaponized, demonic state, but not quite as refined and gracious as they had been when I was a human. I might still be able to do some damage with them, but they were si
gnificantly less powerful than I remembered.
I brought my hand to my mouth, and realized that my teeth were disappointingly sharp. I would still be able to eat well, and I could likely use them as a weapon as well, but the implications of tasting more blood in my mouth didn't quite sit with me.
The water wasn't still enough to give me any sort of affirmative about my eyes, but I imagined that if the source of light was different in this world, my eyes wouldn't be the same either.
Possibly the most disappointing aspect of my new form wasn't any of the physical characteristics just listed -- it was my wing.
At least while I had been a demon, I had enjoyed the pleasure of flight once more. When I had been a human, the tattoos had at least been appealing in their own way. Whatever form I was in now, was just as disabled as my Fae body.
I collapsed onto my ass and felt the first waves of loss pass through me. Each wave that followed made its own attempt at cheering me back up, and placing me back in that state of elation and purpose that had been so restorative. I looked around at the new world before my eyes and cried, alone on the shoreline.
What have I done?
Epilogue
“Mom, mom! There’s a dead man on the sidewalk! Come quick!”
The voices were faint, but they came through all right. The visions of afterlife still burned behind my eyelids. I had seen things that no man should ever be asked to see while continuing to be asked to live his life.
“See! See! He’s not moving, and he’s just laying there!”
“Oh my God. Somebody call an ambulance.”
“No luck ma’am, you think he’s the only one, you’re delusional. Take a look around, this place is in awful shape. He’s probably another one of those freaks. Better to leave the dead where they are.”
Freaks?
I struggled to move, and with some effort, I was able to push myself upward.
“Eeep!”
“This one’s still got a pulse!”
“Quick, roll him over.”
“Oh my God, what happened to him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe some kind of cult.”
“Mom, why does he have markings all over his face?”
“Hush…”
“I don’t like this… I don’t think we should help him.”
“Maeve said that she found a weird one the other day. Wings, and sharp teeth, like a demon. They tied it up and poured gasoline all over it. You know what happened next. They look human enough at first glance, but they’d just as soon eat your children as shake your hand.”
“You don’t know that!”
“Sure I do. Maeve told me herself.”
“What the hell does Maeve know? Besides, do you see wings on this one?”
“You know, I’d do it just to be safe… back off. I’ll bet the wings are hidden underneath those robes of his.”
A boot to the shoulder woke me out of my dream-state. The pain was so sudden and undeserved. A flare of anger grew inside of me. I tried to cut it out, but I couldn’t.
Another sharp kick to the side, and my hand reached out of its own accord and grabbed the man by his leg. I was weak, but all I really needed was a point of contact. I reached into his body, and touched the only part of him that I could see clearly anymore. My fingers grasped something delicate, and separated it from his body.
The man fell down to the floor, and his soul went free.
Everyone screamed — and then, there was silence.
- THE END -
A New Dawn
By Jae Vogel
Chapter 1
There had been times—many of them—when Aurora had searched “darkness dreams” or “dreams of total darkness” just to see what Dr. Google had to say. Rarely did everyone’s favorite physician have anything helpful to add.
Darkness is symbolic of incomprehension, the unconscious, of malice, death, and concerns about the unknown.
To dream that you are lost in the darkness indicates a sense of loss, uncertainty, or despair.
But Aurora always forgot this advice when the dream was upon her. Tonight, it began as it always did. Darkness. On every side. Below, above, pressing against her skin like a physical thing. It felt soft, smooth, like satin; something that filled her with such dread should have felt cold or clammy. But no. She was adrift again in satiny darkness, having no way out, not knowing which way she even came in.
Her real body in her bed twisted about, tangling slim legs and slender fingers through her sheets. In her dream, the darkness began to move. It was gradual, like something long-dead taking its first, hesitating breaths. It felt wrong, like something that should not be. And as the darkness flowed and whirled around her, the fear began. It was the hot-blooded fear of a rollercoaster and the racing-heart excitement of a first kiss, not all bad but completely terrifying. And Aurora was, as always, completely terrified.
And now, the next act. The darkness began to tighten its noose, as it always did. Closer and closer, spinning in smaller circles until Aurora felt certain it must be about to strangle her. It never strangled her, though, not even tonight. In the waking world, her muscles tightened painfully, twisting together in anticipation.
Through the darkness—Aurora felt it more than saw it—a hand reached. Whether it was to save her or harm her, Aurora never knew, but it grasped for her through the depthless, endless black night.
Her cell phone blared a clanging alarm and Aurora snapped awake, panting. Sunlight filtered in through her curtains, slanting through the city buildings outside, finding its way here to where it was most needed. Nothing would have been half so welcome as the sight of sunlight after another one of the darkness dreams. They had been recurring all through her childhood, for as long as she could remember. Her mother had never had money for a psychiatrist, but whenever Aurora went to the school councilor the dreams were labelled as manifestations of abandonment anxiety.
Wasn’t that something. Abandonment anxiety. Why ever would Aurora have that? It surely wasn’t her father walking out when she was little, no, definitely not that.
Of course, Aurora reasoned as she fought out of her tangle of bedsheets, who didn’t have abandonment anxiety? Was there anyone in the world who liked being left high and dry?
In the soft rays of sunlight, dust motes hovered and danced; realistically, it meant their apartment was old and musty, but they were strangely beautiful in the morning light. Aurora watched them float for a moment, still drowsy, wrapped in her quilt.
“You up, baby?”
“I’m up, Momma,” Aurora replied. An enormous yawn began halfway through the small sentence. She smiled and turned towards the door. “I’m up.”
Never once in her life had Aurora woken before her mother. When she was in grade school, this had seemed natural. Why question it? That was just the way things were, and had always been. Aurora had just assumed that she didn’t need to sleep. The way children often do, Aurora had shrugged it off, seeing no need to worry.
When she was in her teens, Aurora found out the truth of things; Ramona Potier was an insomniac, afflicted severely with an inability to fall asleep or even to stay asleep. She’d always made use of this handicap to work extra hours, as many as three jobs at once, to provide for herself and Aurora in New York, where even three jobs was sometimes not enough. It had cost her, in the end, and eventually Aurora had returned home from school senior year to find her mother curled up and shivering in the bathtub—she’d had a nervous breakdown. Overworked, the doctor said. Take a break. And here’s the bill.
So at seventeen, Aurora had to assume responsibility for both of them. The last few months of high school had been terribly close, but she’d graduated and moved straight into the work force, taking up her mother’s mantle to keep a roof over their heads.
That was five years ago. Five years of waitressing, bartending, shop keeping, running newspapers or pizzas (as circumstances demanded). Her high school friends had moved away to college, careers, their futures. And A
urora was here. Making ends meet. Stuck in an exhausting limbo where one day bled into the next and there was an endless need for another paycheck.
Ramona wasn’t able to work anymore; something had seemed to break inside her the day she had her attack. Now curiously quiet and reserved, she rarely left the apartment. Her days were spent obsessively cleaning and obsessively looking after her daughter, to the point where Aurora sometimes felt no less than suffocated.
Aurora snapped her sheets back into place just as Ramona’s voice sounded outside her door.
“Aurora, sweetie—do you want me to bring you your cereal in bed?”
Aurora rolled her eyes; most days, she could keep her exasperation to herself. “No, Momma, I’m going to come out and eat with you.”
Rubbing sleep and the last bits of the dream from her eyes, Aurora opened the door to her room and joined her mother in the kitchen. A tiny table was squeezed in the corner by the window; Ramona was sitting here, and it looked like she’d been sitting there for hours already. Her skinny frame was settled in her usual chair, hair up in a scarf, gazing out the window absently.
“What’cha thinkin’ about?” Aurora asked cheerfully from the kitchen. She poured a bowl of cereal (Cinnamon Toast Crunch) and splashed in some milk. Her mother still hadn’t answered by the time she put both box and carton away and took her seat at the table.
“Oh, nothing,” Ramona answered finally, dreamily.
Aurora swallowed the sharp reply that came to mind. She already knew what her mother was thinking about. The same thing she was always thinking about this time of day, in this still hour, when another sleepless night had passed. Aurora’s father. Where the daughter was plagued by fitful dreams and simmering resentment, Ramona only ever seemed to remember him wistfully, lovingly, as if she had forgotten the part where he walked out.