I am safe in Maya's arms.
Safe.
Safe.
I stare into Maya's eyes
and I see all. All there is to know. All about me. All about my Purpose.
All about Everything. I see a perfect world of peace and I know how
to make it real.
I know All.
I am All.
I stare into Maya's eyes
and I See All. But the roar of the world is crashing down upon my
soul, crushing me in its unrelenting march into the future. It is
burying me in its certainty. Devouring me in its justice. I am lost
in its relevance.
Maya turns my face back
to face her eyes. I stare into Maya's eyes and I see...I see...I try
to see who I am.
"Think, Ward," she whispers.
"Remember what you already Know..."
Vague uncertainties drift
beyond my perception. I see huddled masses reaching upwards with blood-stained
hands. A hundred billion lost souls. I see their silent screams pouring
out of gaping, toothless grimaces.
They are calling for comfort.
They are begging for a
better life.
They are pleading for peace.
I feel the hot breath of
their pleas pressing upwards against my face, and it suspends me in
the air far above them.
"Answer them, Ward," Maya
whispers.
"I..." I moan as the weight
of the heavens press down upon me, and it overcomes the buoyancy of
humanity's hopes. I am plummeting from a great height.
I feel Maya's fingertips
upon my face. She is trying to keep me from turning from her gaze,
trying to keep me from losing my balance.
But I am cascading down,
caught up in the raging fury of thunder and storm, and a grasping
gravitational pull is spinning me around and around, veiling me in
confusion, blinding my perceptions, dissipating the urgency of my
existence as I tumble and dive, uncontrollable, inconsolable.
I am descending upon the
musky breath of humanity. Its earthy familiarity bathes me in reassurance,
and I try to reach out in empathetic understanding, but I am suspended
above their numbly outstretched hands, unable to touch their hearts.
They are reaching up for
forgiveness, trying to let me soothe their pain, but the raging stormy
outbursts that have delivered me, have filled the air with electricity.
It bursts in paralyzing shocks and surges through the mob, causing
their hands to flail in spastic twitches, leaving me helplessly swimming
above the tide of their grasping reach.
I feel the gentle caress
of their lingering desire beneath the tingling sensation that rushes
through their collective fingertips. But their humanity is an ocean,
and I am tossed in its waves for all eternity, and as we are caught
in the web of time, their fleshy digits are slowly armed with unforgivingly
sharp taloned cuticles.
I roll and spin and wince
as they unknowingly and unintentionally rip at my skin. They tear
at my soul. And the blood of guilt and shame pours down over their
eyes, increasing their blindness, increasing their pain, leaving them
listless and lifeless. But the electrocuting surge of emotion will
not cease, and their arms are locked in parasitic tetanus.
The roar is growing louder.
Something is approaching. It is those from whom I've been hiding.
They pour down upon us in floods of fury. The masses disperse. They
stampede outward in every direction to escape the flood of their own
desires.
I dam the waves with my
soul. The pressure is so very great against my mind, but I hold my
breath, and my sacrifice helps me to bear the pain. I call to them.
I try to reassure them. But the stampede crushes humanity's hopes,
and we are all washed away in the tide.
I am swept beneath the
waves as I give in to time. I am choking, drowning, sinking to the
bottom, pulled downwards by the weight of my own indifference.
But as I numbly settle
into the seabed of my apathetic horizon, Maya swims by, armed with
a lifeline that stretches down from a future yet to be and yet always
present. She wraps it around my heart and gently tugs, then firmly
holds on as my muscles resist in their newfound rigor mortis.
She lays me down upon
the bottom of this empty sea, and fixes my lifeless gaze upon my bold
reflection in her eyes, while she breathes a sweet breath of life
into my lifeless lungs.
I awaken from my death
of disappointment, coughing, sputtering, gasping. The world is quiet
and still, and my awareness of it is alluring, and it tempts me to
explore its dark and hidden secrets.
Quickly, Maya firmly holds
my head so that I cannot look away. I stare into her eyes.
"Think, Ward," she begs,
"Focus on that vision of peace on earth," she whispers urgently, and
she struggles in vain to hold my attention.
It has all been in vain,
for I am too weak, and I cannot see my reflection in her eyes any
longer.
Above us I see the fishermen's
net thrown out to catch me. They have found me. The net wraps around
my curiosity, and yanks me from the safety of Maya's embrace.
I shiver at first, missing
the warmth of her body, realizing I'd never noticed how comforting
it had been until its radiance could no longer bathe me in its glow.
Maya tries to tear a hole
in the net for me to escape. But the fishermen see her through the
prism of water, and another net is cast upon its surface. As the weight
of its intent pulls the net downward, she tries to swim from its embracing
grasp. But it follows after her, with a purpose and fervor, as if
she were its sole purpose for being and it would not be denied its
wedding night.
She swims and she thrashes
at the water and I watch, but I do not see what is happening until
the moment is gone, and the net just suddenly stops its pursuit of
her illusion; unfulfilled it is pulled to the surface.
Maya quickly reverses her
retreat, and thunders upwards towards me. But it is too late. They
have nearly pulled me to the boat.
"Ward!" she cries, a siren's
plaintive song that drifts in and out of my awareness as I gasp and
choke in the frozen water that is so filled with the bitter stench
of my own weakness.
