The Three Sisters

You may have deja vu.


I had a slightly odd dream last night, and it all started with a bonfire.

We were dancing, everyone। Twirling whirling like sufis aflame. We all wore masks. Some were sad others irate but most were just blank and tame. We had feathers in our hair and paint on our bodies. The air was thinner than it should have been and the ground crunched under our feet like popcorn at the movies.

The moon moved over and through the sky. Over and over. Crescent, Gibbous, Crescent. Never full nor wholly dark. Night after night we danced and danced in the twilight. The sun never came up. Only moon and stars.

As nights went by, the fire grew brighter and brighter, till it was great and white and hot. It seemed to ripple. That Van Gogh dissimilarity with reality that dreams do have churning it into a cleft or open sore in reality. Beyond only white and bright shining light.

Most of us continued dancing but some of us, moths to the flame were drawn by the lightsource and walked forward. Like moths some of us caught fire and writhed, burning but not charing or scaring, on the ground. Others of us were afraid and stopped. For some, the lure too great, we stepped through into the light.

I was the third person to fall through the ground.

I was surrounded by a dazzling illumination. I tumbled without end. Free fall. Yet above me, to some extent like an akward sky or more a tent stood the place I had fallen from. I was looking out through the fire. I could see the others dancing in the dark. Their eyes when seen from this brightness was nearly the only thing visible. Them only, from the minute reflection of the fire. Fireflies. Then they were only fireflies.

The sky closed up, or I fell further I dont know.

Now all was light, except the sky now a lone dark star so high as to nearly be drowned out. I'm in a land that seems to be colored in a negative spectrum. A land without gound, or shadow.

Tumbling along a man walks up to me. His long white hair is matted and stuck to his forehead and neck. He is young though and as white and luminescent as the world I am surrounded by. Dressed in a white shirt and tie and jacket. The only opposing colors come from his silver teeth.

He takes hold of my tumbling legs and plants my feet firmly on a ground I cant see.

I stand there and I start to hear words. All the man does is smile, but I know he is talking to me. I cant remember what was said to me but I seem to choose a direction and start walking.

I begin moving faster and faster. I'm running now through the strange bright void. I dont know why, but I'm not tired. I've been running a long time.

I glance ahead of me and see the black star begin to fall out of the sky. It seems to smoke on the way down. As it falls I notice a second piece also crashing through the void.

I slow down and stare. I'm awed. They're meteors. Smoking and dark as charcoal.

The black star's children grow larger and larger in the illuminated sky.

They crash into the ground with a horrible sonic boom, and everything goes black.

When I open my eyes I am on the ground. I am sore. My ears don't work, nor does my left arm. I am bleeding somewhere. I notice only because the cherry red blood stands in such contrast to the bright's intense saturation.

I force myself up and stare wide eyed at the scene around me. Hundreds of the white illuminated people are sprawled about. Hither and thither. Wrecked bodies turning grey. Some of them are still alive and crawling away with looks of horror and dismay. All of them are cracked like porcelain repaired, poorly and with black mortar.

As is the ground surrounding the crater where the smoking meteors struck the glowing terra firma.

Gunshots!

The meteors crack and groan and I see with my own eyes that these are not meteors but living or unliving creatures. They push themselves up, great four legged beasts, not pigs or bulls nor something more fanciful. Like squat buffalo with tusks like an elephant and shaded in entirety black. They shake and tremble and smoke from every inch of flesh and eye, and they both charge directly towards me.

Cracks form in the earth with every beast's step. Every one a thunderbolt black. I see no eyes or mouths on these fiends, nada yet tusks and muscled back. And billowing rippling smoke pouring out from every pore. They are gaining ground and my legs will not move.

Inches and inches, feet and yards lost with every passing heartbeat. The beasts are coming for me. Closer and closer.

I stand my ground only because I am so afraid I can do nothing else. The closer beast lowers its head and tusks. So enormous. My entire vision is clouded with the beast driving towards me like a train. Only yards away now and still I stand. I close my eyes and wait.




I can feel what must be hot breath.




Deus Ex Machina.

The Man With Silver Teeth hurtles into the side of the closest beast and commands my legs to run. He is still smiling. He has spoken not a word.

I turn in time to see the second beast finishing off The Man With Silver Teeth. His body shattered and hollow, his teeth shining in the light. I run for my life.

I run and run and I dont grow tired.

In the distance I see a fine green line running from horizon to horizon. As I close upon it, I realize its a stream. Its washing away all the white underneath it like paint. Green plants grown near its banks. In the water I see clear to the bottom. Fish swim over pale sandstone. Rain pours down.

I decide I have ran far enough and I stop. I lie in the rain by the creekbed. My left arm tingles. I see the white illuminated world drench and flake away. Growth explodes from every rain drop. A green carpet of clover and moss and lichen. Suddenly I am very tired, and the world helplessly goes dark.



I awaken to a hand on my forehead. My eyes see a young womans face. She shushes me, touches my arm and it comes to life. My broken left and worthless arm is again whole. An identical woman leans over me with a mason jar filled with water from the stream. I feel yet another identical woman prop up my back to help me drink. Three nude women are healing me. It's still drizzling down rain. They are all so thin and starved, yet serene and purpose-filled.

The first woman comes forward and kneels at my side. She opens her mouth wide and reaches in with her right hand. A silver twine is pulled up and out of her throat. Hand over hand she pulls it further out. The second sister takes the end and begins counting the hands-lengths. The third sister, my head still in her lap leans over me and touches the twine. The point of touch begins to glow gently and I begin feeling my heart pounding harder and harder. My breathing grows shallow. More and more of my body slows down. My toes then feet then legs lose feeling. My hands and my arms. I turn and see that too am pale and luminescent. I too am covered in black cracks. I too am shattered beyond repair and as the cracks cover more and more of me the third sister kisses my rain soaked forehead, and then she closes my eyes.


I have been there before and will go there again.


I awake to the sound of drum beats, or is it breathing? Either way I am nearly blind. I am in some thick abode, muffled noise of all kinds penetrates my ears. My legs and arms are oddly proportioned and I'm tethered at the waist. I realize I am submerged. I see an enormous shadow cross in front of me. I kick it in reflex and notice the concave walls surrounding me. I hear laughter and the whole world shakes. More shadows outside the cocoon. I'm getting confused and my brain gets cloudier and cloudier. I feel drunk, or exhausted, or both. I fight hard to stay concious. I fight and fight. I hear laughter again, my leg kicks with its own mind. I try to stay here and to concentrate. That laughter though. It drives me to distraction. I cant focus, and my body begins acting on impulse.

I stay awake for a while fighting and holding on. My body long since has decided to do its own thing. I cant even keep my eyes open. I feel myself kick. I hear the same thu-thump thu-thump thu-thump. I feel the world occasionally turn over. Time tics on. I wear on. Time tics I try to keep fighting for lucidity.

How much time has passed I don't know, and exhausted, I give in and everything bends, into fragments of memory.

And then nothing।










Written originally on November 14 2006