Revelation's Disguise

She kissed my cheek and told me I was a good boy before pushing me into the deep dark pit of obscurity.  I screamed instinctively as I began my fall.  A natural reaction to such a shocking ordeal foisted upon an unsuspecting person.  My screams soon ran out though as my croaking throat gave in to time.  A man can only scream for so long.  And the fall was long indeed.

Part 1 – The Dark Descent:

Time seemed to slow as I fell down that pit.  No, not seemed to.  It did slow.  Waves of bitter darkness enveloped my vision and I could see nothing at all.  I could only feel.  Feel myself falling.  Nothing else was real to me.  My fear was palpable.  What terrible ending could lurk at the bottom of such a drop?  As my mind raced I had to take action.  I didn’t know when the bottom would be reached.  I swayed left and right in the air but couldn’t seem to pierce that almost eternal darkness.  If I even brushed cold stone or metal a chance could be made.  If I only got a grip on something tangible.  But I couldn’t and I didn’t.  All that remained was the dark fall.

And then something strange happened.  Even stranger than a dark hole with seemingly no end.  My internal feelings linked in with the fall.  I felt them pulse.  Like they weren’t internal anymore.  As if they were outside my body.  They were falling with me and I could see little snippets of them against the dark background.  Sparks of colour against the black and bleak.  Nothing continuous to light my way but it was something.  Reds and blues and greens flashing as I fell.  They melded together and before me they became images.  Vibrant images against the backdrop.  I realised with awe that these moving images were memories.  My memories.

It was as if I was purveying some sort of vertical cinema.  Looking all around me as more and more of my memories flashed into action.  Time slowed down just enough for me to watch them.  After some viewings I noticed a distinct pattern with the memories.  The early showings were negative.  Of the memories I elected to forget.  I watched on helplessly as I was reminded about my embarrassments and failings.  Of the times when I was too late and the times when I didn’t say what needed to be said.  My heart ached as these fresh insults sprung up around me.  Taunting my being.  I thought to myself there and then that I deserved to be thrown into this pit.  I deserved this deep fall into obscurity.  But just as I was at my lowest low the memories began to change.

Positive visages from my past replaced the negative ones.  Memories of laughter.  Of pride.  Of being at ease with myself and others.  The colours shined even brighter as these memories showed.  Splashing the canvas of dark black with an effervescent shade of hope.  I recalled each one like an old friend long forgotten and that’s when it changed.  I wasn’t falling anymore.

Part 2 – The Flight of Hope:

When does falling become flying?  Isn’t flying just a controlled version of falling?  Knowing exactly where you are going and what you want to do compared to…falling aimlessly.  Wouldn’t an airplane also be falling if it wasn’t being controlled?

The fall turned into a topsy turvy glide before finally evolving into flight.  I wasn’t falling down that pit anymore.  I was flying down it.  Guided by my inherent change of mood.  My feelings were still external.  Affecting my body as those positive memories kept playing.  Almost as if they were linked.  Like my mindset was fuelled by them.

When I began my journey into this unknown it was via force.  Via bitterness and subterfuge.  Tricked?  Maybe.  Or maybe that’s what I wanted to think.  I screamed.  Wanting things to be the way they were before.  Fuelled by desperation.  I dreaded the fall and what met me at the bottom.  But now those feelings were replaced.  Now, with my newly acquired strains of hope, I’m looking forward to finishing my journey.  To reaching my destination.  Confidence flows through me and I think I see a light.  I don’t but your mood alters your perception.  Hope can be found even in the cold, wet trenches.

Time is relative but every journey has an end.  It wouldn’t be called a journey otherwise.  I feel time speed up again.  Like a passenger on a train that has been held up but which has now crossed the checkpoint.  Speeding on, full steam ahead.  I wonder what I will find at the bottom, at the end.  But I am positive.  I embrace it with open arms.  Heralding it in.  The memories have since ceased but my new mood I keep with me.  The darkness of the pit lightens and the space closes in.  Time to face the future.  I close my eyes.

And then I awake.