by Hades
There was another note. I had gone back to the same place as always: the room. It wasn’t shocking to see it there, even though there had been two others that same day. I tell it now, because it meant something. The poem spoke truth this time, but I could do nothing. I had only gone back because I had nothing else to do. The writer must have known this, and seen this fate for me, because he was ready to meet me with his poem every time I stepped on my doorstep. It was so reliable. Every time I looked, there it was – a curse on the door.
But how could I change it? I had nothing to do but to return and pass the time, at least to pretend that the days were being shortened till I returned to the States. I’d eat when it was time, but Blanca would always have something prepared even if it wasn’t time. Still, I tried to come only when expected, but couldn’t help it when there was nothing else; and I couldn’t stand the loneliness any more.
To further my trouble more, even Blanca seemed repelled by me. She wouldn’t talk any more, as she did before. I thought, for a moment, that she didn’t love me, but saw that she did through the torment and the teardrops in her eyes. The curse was full, and I was damned. She, of all people knew that, so she had to follow the customs and keep a distance. If not, then she would only be heaping more coals upon my head. They said that proximity by her, or anyone else, would only find me guiltier in the end, and could even bring the same malediction upon her own head, if such was the case. So she stayed far from me with her words, only giving me food because of love and the contract that we had arranged.
At least by this contract there was some relief, so I did not have to be entirely alone. While all the rest shunned me, at least Blanca still fed me, though as a dog from the street. Yet another island superstition could be thanked for that. They said that to break a deal or contract with “the damned” was even worse than being the damned. So she gave the food but not a word, until she could not stand it.
She broke down at my feet one day, like a real mother, and cried. “I have to talk to my hijito,” she said sobbing, looking up from my feet with those tears that she’d kept buried, silent.
“No Blanca, it is all right, I believe now. Don’t talk. You don’t want to make it worse, and I do not want to make you so afraid. Please mama, I love you and I thank you and now I believe. So don’t talk anymore.”
And there she was, my little mother, sobbing and wiping her eyes and nose, trying to get up and get me something from the cupboard. “Wear this,” she said, drawing something down and then trying to convince me, for she knew that I would refuse.
“No don’t talk. You don’t have to convince me anymore. I will wear it, but there is nothing left to do, so don’t make it worse.”
My words made a smile come upon her face and she quieted and wiped away her tears before el Meni (the god that keeps the fate) saw her do it. Then I wore the necklace, not because I had begun to believe in Gaucho, still an idol to me, but to keep her happy and to show what she had meant to me. Perhaps it was my passing present to her for all her hospitality, as a foresight to eternal doom, while standing on the edge of existence.
So thus was the poem:
DESTRUCTIVE CHASM
Of black bending chains to pull and drag the feet
A stretch of limb and torso break and spill the darkness there.
Makes a stain on the floor it’s a shape, but not of man.
Perhaps it’s movement but not like light.
Stress: the empty feelings of a battering success
Leaving nothing for the growth and molding nothing from the clay.
The scream: breath of light in me
The torment of washing it out
Going to the gutter where waste and disease fill the whole.
Hold of darkness dreary facing images of Hell
Praying for a beam of life to pierce this destiny’s basin
The bottom of this underlining state
Almost non-living here wretched
Pit-chasm-dwelling
Pierce own burden bearing
Fate.
Part 4
On Entity’s Edge
If I had seen what others saw happening to me I might have done something to change things. Blanca knew, and she stayed her safe distance. Never again did anyone get close, not even Noelia. But I did not recognize where I was going. I must have been adrift, until my time came. Had I known it was to come and where I would spend the rest of eternity, I might have hesitated – perhaps tried to repent and fix my life. But everything seemed meaningless, and I didn’t know my future, so what was left but wait till things came crashing down to their conclusion?
It is so hard to think about those final days, now that they have been left safely in the distant past, for I know that life gave me sufficient time to handle all my affairs and I could have moved on to the fullness. Yet did I take advantage of my days? Did I do what I should have to move forward, or did I waste my gift by never doing the things that were required at my hand until it became everlastingly too late?
“Thus is time: a leak dripping into a pail under a damaged sink,” is the way I thought, “And life is the water that trickles from it. Drop by drop, it is given to us. It is an element that can be made to our advantage, but too often is used for our demise. This earth is the rusted pot that catches the spilling drops: an inanimate and dead place where the water cannot flow. The only thing that stirs it is the rippling caused by the new drops; otherwise the pot is still and dead. But someday the leak will be stopped and the pot will be left dry. Perhaps what they will call the end of the world.
Now I’ve learned, at least in part, that I was wrong and that life is not a crumbling pot nor earth a degenerate mistake. It is a precious gift given to us from beyond the stars that we should take with gratitude, for such can never be replaced again. It is a ground of opportunity that can allow us to surpass the greatest expectations we have of ourselves – to gain that peace and fullness, if we hold fast and don’t let go. I have learned these things the hard way, for my method of adopting this way of thinking does not merit progress. I have learned it through the grave, and the grave is a place too late for progress.
Thus came my end: the end of my world. I had allowed the drops of life to drain out and let myself run dry. I’d fooled myself into thinking that there would be plenty of time for progress, so time wasted was not really time missed. But if by some chance I’d someday find my time cut short, then heaven would be merciful and find some way for me to make it up. “Whatever wasn’t done on earth could be done in heaven,” I’d always say. But wrong I was, for there is no heaven, or at least I have not gone there, and it’s somewhere else. (Selfishly I say this, for I would rather that there was no heaven now that I’m not there.) Therefore, my time for her is now forever lost.
Earth’s procrastination has left me idle, rehearsing the only thing I have left, losing the images of my reality. I even start to forget the exact history of what went on while I was there. The memory is as a dream already fading, and yet I try to recollect what happened on those final days and tell myself once more .
It seems I walked alone, on a path to nowhere and on a course or desire for nothing or no one except her. She was (and always has been) the one and only thing I crave, yet to become reunited with her was as unlikely as it would have been for me to successfully swim across the Atlantic in a quest to get back to the States. There was nothing I could do but drag on, walking as a solitaire-transient, stepping onto the road of emptiness and loneliness that lags on forever into the horizon, while waiting for my end to come.
During this last desperate time I must have been disconnected from reality. Faces were there, and figures, but the precise detail is lost. The part I remember most was that I was walking, down a path I’d never been before. All was calm, unusually calm, and there was an unnatural “out-of-place” peaceful feeling inside of me. It was strange because I knew that peace came only to those that lead a good life – and mine was far from being a good life.
&nb
sp; Yet, there it was, a calm order in my consciousness, a feeling as if all affairs were taken care of. It was an experience that pulled me close to my creator, as though I knew that all things were in his hands. I actually recall thinking about the fact that I had a father in the heavens, and that he truly loved me, even though I hated myself. Although I knew I did not deserve such peace and love, I could not hate this feeling, even through all my former guilt. It was as though I had come home to open arms that always had affection. Thus the feeling remained, almost walking next to me, as I went through that alleyway.
There were two or three other bums sprawled out on the sides of the buildings, but they were inconsequential to the feelings I was having. It was not a peculiar setting: the broken bottles on the floor, the trash cans with their contents spilled on the street, the rust and dirt on the walls, and the awful smell... Then I saw the light.
It came from the side of a glass at the end of the alley – a small beacon from an otherwise dark hole. But as I looked, it became brighter, like the noonday sun. The cause was a small window on the bottom side of a building that somehow caught the sun’s reflection and lit the entire alleyway, when otherwise it would have been dark as a winter cloud. I was drawn to the light, and awakened in curiosity as a child to the unknown. There was no fear or reservation, just a calm and healing trust that drove me closer.
Each step and the light from the reflection ever increased, but it was unlike any glare from ordinary glass that causes one to squint and shut one’s eyes. This was a smoothly flowing, even reflection that warmed and blessed my eyes instead of making them hurt.
And what was stranger was that the bums around me were unaware, or uninterested, in any of this. They were all well and happy because each held enough to drink. Only one saw me pass, and lifted his head to see if there was anything of gain, but when he saw I was just another one of his own kind, the interest fled and his head fell back again.
The light grew on as I stepped towards it. It made me warmer. The life that had once flowed in me returned, but I could sense that it was only for a while. My thoughts drifted and changed as the light changed, and it was as though my faith dropped from under me as I became confused because of the light. Could I have been imagining it now? Was it real? How could a reflection become like this? It appeared now to be the sun itself, shining at me but not burning me. There I was, almost touching it, at the end of what now appeared to be a tunnel of lights. It was all so confusing. I was taken so fast that things did not make sense. The alley, the street, the ground, the homeless ones, the air, the sky, and even the earth had seemed to pass away, transformed into a circling kaleidoscope where I found myself floating, and with this great light at my fingertips.
It was extraordinary! The tunnel, in itself was unlike anything I had ever seen. The walls, or sides of the tunnel, were not walls at all but made of some indescribable material of liquid colors, so pure and undefiled as ever had been seen or recorded by the human eye. These colors danced in this cylindrical funnel that spun like a whirlwind, so deep that it stretched from this earth to a realm far beyond human comprehension. It was confining, but not claustrophobic.
I would have gladly stayed in the tunnel of many colors forever, if it had been possible, and remained happy there, but something of a higher nature, irresistible, with the aid of my own instinct, drove and pushed me to the light as if it was my home. So I went, into the mouth of a shining gateway, that “door to heaven.”
This all took place in a flash of seconds, because then my hand entered through the veil of light, and that was the end of the tunnel. There was a flash, and then nothingness. I was free-weight in a realm vast as infinity. Yet I knew where I was, it was that place of peace, the source of all my feelings.
Another thing that was unnatural to all common sense, but which I experienced, was that I could comprehend all things. The whole expanse and immeasurable size of creation was made simple to me, although not in the common way, for such a number would not have fit into my mind. A human cannot conceive infinity. And though I did not see it by its size, I could still truly comprehend the significance of all things as they truly are, going beyond the captivity of my third dimensional world.
There I was, floating in a sea of glass, where nothing could be touched. My ordinary senses were lost: pain, touch, sight, smell, hearing – even the smallest sensations, like the weight of air upon the hair follicles of each pore, were gone. Nothing was left of my human senses, but now there were other faculties that were awakened inside of me and I became a state of being unlike any other awareness I had ever felt.
There wasn’t hearing, yet I couldn’t say I heard nothing. It was as if thoughts had become sound, or maybe sounds had become as soft as my thoughts. (Have you ever been asleep and then woken abruptly by a loud noise in your dream? That noise, made by nothing real, at least nothing physical, was still loud enough to wake you. That is how it was there, except nothing was loud or disturbing).
It was during this state of higher awareness when the loss of sensation became evidently missed, although somewhat nullified by all the advantages experienced. Hence, the impact of the real loss (my body) did not come till later and, for the meantime, there was real palpable peace. Ironically enough, peace was the only thing I could describe as being felt in a physical way, for I could not describe it any other way.
I do not know how long I was in that place, but when it was over I was taken to a place of darkness. It was much different than that nice place. Before, there had been no darkness, just an absence of light – but now there was a definite presence of it. It was real, real as anything had ever been, and I was there; surrounded as if by some sort of blanketing dampness.
Then came the feelings, one by one. Feelings not associated to the good place, but of our world. First fear, then anger, then agony, then the loneliness, which was the greatest of all. They came, rushing into me, filling me like an air bag, and went deep enough inside of me so that they’d never have to leave me again. Even some physical feelings began to return, for I swear I could feel the darkness on my skin. Then I felt some light on my eyelids, as when the sun comes in through the window in the early morning. Lighter, yet not in any sense bright enough to see by. But I was glad that at least I was no longer in that pit or chasm where I had previously been, the end of all existence.
Then more of my perceptions came. I even believe that there was a body around me again. Not emotionally and physically attached, like a living soul, but something that gave me position, in a state of actually being somewhere. I could not feel my pores alive: not the wind upon the hair follicles, but it was all there, I was sure of it. I don’t know why the notion of it made me happy, but for some time I was so content to know that I had a body that I did not care of anything else. Whether it was alive or dead, I did not know, but it did not matter to me either.
If I would have known of the long captivity, the absence of flesh and bone that was to come, I could have dreaded it more than the dark place. Maybe it was better that I didn’t know.
Oh, how I miss my body. Its loss is the only thing that makes me hysterical. Truly its absence has been as a dungeon where the hope of release is left to that grave’s mercy in a pronounced life sentence. There is a feeling of emptiness and missing that is indescribable. One recovers to know that there is nothing greater than a hope for reuniting with something made of flesh again. But how, when the rotting worms have taken in and have made their home the dirt which was once a body, fresh and full of spirit?
“Resurrection, sweet resurrection please come of which I’ve learned in early youth. I pray thee not too long to find me here, not forgotten and not last in all humanity. I fear thou will not find me till the end; until I have lost all hope”.
* * *
Through my experience, I have felt the body around me corrupt away. It has left me withered, and even now I drain away. I am not in that dark place, that void where everything goes, but I have no wrapping to keep my spirit warm. It
is indeed a torment far too great, and I am weak from bearing it. My whole being, what is left of it now, trembles with the ghostly pains that tell me there was once a flesh. It is a great price to pay, but just for what I did; knowing that if I had chosen earlier to change maybe things could have turned out different. But I waited far too long, until all chances were gone; the only thing remaining at this point was to accept my condemnation while lying confused in some unknown cramped space.
Some of my senses came back to me, but I still could not move. I could feel my arms, they were about me, but the sensation of them was different; it was not like life, but like death, (although I’d never experienced death before, so I had nothing to compare with, but I was sure that it was death that I was feeling). My body was there, like the weight of a sandbag, but it was rather more on top of me than alive, a heavy dead thing. I could have fancied myself in a comma; then hope would have made me whole. No, this was different, not life at all.
Then I heard the noise, falling, clinking onto something hard directly overhead. A tapping sound of assiduous fingers hitting continually. I knew it must be dirt. It fell and fell, pile by pile, as I tried to sort out what was happening. In rhythm motions, almost in cycles, it fell with its pattern: covering, covering, and spreading.
It continued this way maybe thirty to forty times, then came the swooping, and I was carried from that place, above the thing that was on my head, to the outside world. I could see again! There was a sudden blur at first, too fast to be detected, like an unfocused camera that hasn’t had to take a shot in years. Then it came: the eyesight that had been missed. I looked around to see where I was and realized that part of me was still trapped inside a wooden box. Then came the double vision.
I was more than seeing straight – with a boundary of horizon on either side of the spectrum, I actually could see both on top of me and below. It was as though I could see things from two different views of perception at exactly the same time. And it was more than that, for I could see in all directions at once. A very strange situation, which I tried to analyze, but for some reason found it impossible to understand how I could see so many things at once.