by Ava D. Dohn
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A piercing cry shattered the peaceful darkness, quickly followed by the pounding of massive valves from a giant pump accompanied by roaring winds. Again and again, plaintive wails tore against the silent expanse as surging floods pressed upon awakening, confused senses. Gradually, like a hungry newborn babe feasting upon nursing teats, those same senses relaxed with the conscious realization of their own existence.
“I am she!” A remembering mind shouted out to a silent world, it not yet aware the body in which it resided still slept in peaceful silence. “I am she!” The mind cried again, remembering a name that it had so long held dear.
Quickly following this revelation, a torrent of jagged memories rent that jubilation with an overwhelming bewilderment of truncated visions, each demanding to be the sole center of attention for all those racing thought processes. From this maelstrom of perplexity evolved a kaleidoscopic cacophony of dreams that stupefied an uncertain mind, eventually forcing it to create self-induced worlds of dreamy hallucinations.
It was during one of these dreamy episodes that this sleepy mind suddenly reached out to the body in which it dwelt. The power of a hand opening and closing its fingers sent excited chills racing up and down countless nerves of the rapidly awakening body. Then came joyful cries from a mouth obeying the orders of an exulting brain. Suddenly, by the sheer willpower of a cognitive mind, two laughing eyes opened upon a spinning blue world of dizzying pageantry.
Although awakened to its outer self, the inner being was still a slave to the current masters of its secret universe whose fingers were not yet done playing these rhapsodic chords of Fantasy’s music, all the while painting upon a paramnesian tapestry with Illusion’s maniacal brush. Long remembered would some of those dreams be, as disjointed adventures through wondrous unrealities of timeless space.
A sudden chill wind rushed in upon a surprised face, its eyes bulging in shocked reaction. The mind’s body threw itself backward in panicked response to only discover that it was falling, ever falling. Reaching out in desperation to find a handhold, the eyes watched in amazement to see fingers stretching out toward fathomless blue space in their fruitless search for safety.
Fear was soon replaced by an exhilarating feeling of floating upon a brilliant, colored sea of rainbow hues that raced about wildly in their ever-search to find the end of the universe. Yes, flying weightless upon an ocean of air! Oh, what a wonderful experience! Oh, the unbridled freedom where the very forces of nature were standing in abeyance to mind and flesh, permitting the returning soul and heart a joyous opportunity to experience life as an immortal, where no command or law holds sway over the will of body or mind.
Taking charge of its own destiny, the mind willed the body to impose its glory upon the ever-dancing distant aurora that filled the sky with its haunting beauty. In only seconds, the ears could hear the numbing roar of wind as the body sped toward the prismatic array of colors. Soon eyes were watering from a cutting breeze that resisted this ever-advancing intruder into the nether worlds of the Immortals. But on the mind pushed, driving the body to its limit, chasing those mesmerizing lights across a darkening sky.
Suddenly, without warning, a stout stormwind slammed the speeding body from the side, sending it tumbling helplessly end over end. From within the stormwind, an angry voice shouted, “Be off with you! You are no god! Only a human is what you are. Be off to your own world and leave ours in peace!”
With a shrieking cry, the mind felt itself spinning wildly downward, helplessly falling through an endless expanse. “Mother! Oh, mother!” Came a plaintive cry, but not from a mind this time. No, now a person, a woman-child, was crying to her mother for help. The mind no longer ruled the body, for now mind, body, and heart were thinking, seeing, and feeling as one - one soul, a living, breathing and very frightened soul.
“Leave us now! Be off! Be off!” The stormwind continued shouting as it followed the child down, it making sure she would not intrude upon its world again. It chased after the girl until she disappeared into heavy clouds filled with rolling thunders and blinding lightning. The riotous convulsions of maddening eruptions cried up to the stormwind in contempt. “Leave the child and return to your ever world! She you cannot do with as you please. Leave or we shall consume you in all our radiant power!”
In silent frustration, the stormwind slowly retreated to whence it came, but not before blowing away the tops of some of the greatest thunderheads. In anger, the clouds shot fiery lightning bolts after the storm, but to no avail, for it was fled far away before the thunderheads could regain their might.
As the thunders’ power returned, their agitated clouds took to twisting and writhing violently in frustration at seeing the storm wind escape, soon turning into a great twirling tempest that sucked the child away into its wildly spinning vortex. For hours - or was it days, or even possibly years - the girl was flung helplessly up and down, to and fro, through the endless funnel cloud. On and on it went in its madness, tearing across the tortured lands far below. At length it tired, releasing its hold and carelessly dropping its captive toward distant grassy fields.
The girl screamed once again, crying for her mother, and then recalled little more, other than the warm downy-like fields filled with beautiful flowers and their wonderful scents. Oh, how comforting and soft, like angel down in a fat feather tic!
The earlier blackness quickly caught up with the child and soon overcame her waking senses. The world of dark shadow again sang its lullabies, ushering in another hour of peaceful, dreamless sleep.