The Marigolds Sing, Pt. 2

I’m whirling in a dream with Sir William. I am descending in circles, gnawing at the singing marigolds, desperate. The harmonies of their melodic welcome, startled by the deranged grip of my swirling insanity. Plummeting, wailing, plunged in a dizzying, downward spiral force. Frightened by the warped swirl of darkness, seized by the kaleidoscopic purple and ambient hues. Mystic fairies continue to circle around me in fits of reassurance, cooing in melodious awe. Almost megalomaniacal in their sense of assurance.

I resist. Clenching my fists. Stubbornly longing for control in the flurry of singing marigolds. Vines, foliage and cosmic dust orchestrated by a tornado of glistening fairies. A metamagical quicksand of nacreous clouds and pearlescent lights, littered with fragments of my deepest memories, a series of visual pockets peering into the privacy of my guilty past, colliding with the highest pitches of life’s greatest gifts. The trees that swayed to the songs of a hundred storms, the waterfalls that slid through banks of clay, the memories of almost drowning as I was swept away by the vigorous, raging wiles of the fearless currents of my homeland’s river banks. In Sto. Nino. The relief of being lifted out from the pits of my silent brush with death, forever a secret to my family who never knew where I went that day. I almost drowned. The rawest fear of childhood that this brush with life’s end would defer in importance to the miracle that I survived that day, unscathed. All because of my fellow wayward friends, playing hooky, surrendering to the desire to see the world beyond the confines enforced, the devastating applause for life’s curious wonder, the simplicity in the belief that all of the unexplained - the second chances, the shifting dreams, the death of a loved one when you need them the most-- are all sanctioned by a higher order. Holding us in the center of nature’s palm, kissing our souls with the worthiness of life’s gift. The convoluted balls of miracle that we are.

I never did tell my aunt why my uniform was soaked with mud that day.

I’ve coiled up in my mind the mosaic of memories, perturbed by my continuing descent towards a circular pit, gaining rapid momentum now. Ceasing control.

“Hey, Eloida, just let go! Close your eyes and expand your soul to the uncertainties of falling!”

The pearl opalescence of fairy wings litter my bewildered eyes, crying for the blessing of stable ground. I continue to swirl about, nervously bobbing against the fury of the wind’s speed. Sir William is consumed with glee, the length of his violet, majestic mane, caressing and tickling my face. His paws escaped my grip, and he is suddenly thrusted up into a prismatic supernova far above. Floating upward, catapulted into the beckoning iridescent lights as he cackles in gamesome delight.

But I am not spared by the violent, glimmering insanity. It’s as if a reckless tapestry of all my life’s experiences have melded into a black hole, consuming me. Preying on my gradually vanishing tidbits of reassurance. Hypertrophic vines and neon green lights, merging into a hollow vastness filled with light and darkness, joy and chaos, love and hate.

Longing and uncertainty.

Pain and pleasure. Water and Air. Life and Death. A chaos that is both familiar and foreign. I’m frightened yet excited. Warm rivulets of tears streaming down my flapping cheeks, swooshed to the side of my temples. The centrifugal force and velocity spinning to the tune of the marigolds’ song. Their joy, of immense gravity triumphantly careening through my internal cacophony of cautious despair and stifled delight. A rhythm of hope and hopelessness. Enraptured by this dazzling display, an animated orchestra. Images and flashes of my treasured memories, again coming towards me. Intermittently dashed by sorrowful memories. Entropy.

A whirlwind of the mutilations and symphonies of my beautiful, wretched soul.

Yet the fairies continue to cheer, the marigolds continue to sing, and for a moment I no longer see Sir William, but I can hear his voice enjoying the weightlessness of flight. He descends towards me, screaming a few words in my direction, but I only hear the musical fairies. A tiny little fairy, clutches on to my spinning hair, climbs its length until she is in the vicinity of my ear and squeaks: “Sir William says your uncertainty is eclipsing the beauty, you must surrender, Eloida. Trust me!” As I cringe, the fairy pops a piece of flower in my mouth, and flutters away.

I continue to totter about in concentric patterns, screaming a voiceless plea. Please make it stop! Do I want it to stop? Am I flying? Suddenly I’m giddy with excitement, but I cannot smile. I close my eyes, and try to hum along to the tunes of bright musical foliage and stardust. For the first time, I’m realizing they’ve been singing all my favorite songs.

The speed of my swirls starts to meander to a less vicious pace, gradually overcoming my fears and becoming featherlight. Like Air.

I steady the chaos in my mind, centering myself with a memory of skating the frozen pond with Michael. Swiftly, I am overcome with peace. A favorite memory. Rattling the chaos of this uncertainty with my own sense of beauty and calm. Allured by the serenity of Michael teaching me how to skate in the frozen pond. I lean into the recollection of the time we spent a weekend near a cabin his family owned. I was always so terrible at ice skating, always steadying myself by the old pear tree. Always anxious about sliding into moments I can’t control. The entropy of my anxieties, always masterfully quelled by his auro, his warmth, his heat.

As he envelopes me in an embrace, the frozen pond shatters along with the escapist memory, and this time I am warped into a chaos of uncertainty without crippling fear. I submit to the newfound weightlessness, submitting to the rose gold beams of light, lifted by the songs and glee of singing marigolds and the rippling waves of a thousand fairies. Their loving brilliance propelled me upwards, towards a scintillating expanse beaming golden lights, weaved with colors I’ve never seen before. Slowly, I start to shatter, my memories with it. The expanse of bright nothingness engulfing Michael, and eventually myself as well. Then a starburst so vivid conquers me, settling into an abrupt encounter with velvet darkness.

A sky with no stars.

***

The sun rays tickle my eyelashes, and my eyelids flutter ajar, opening to the sight of Sir William leaning on my window, smoking incense. It smells like sage. It was a dream? It was a dream. But why---

“William? What are you doing in my room?” I asked markedly.

Meryll’s seraphic lion, Sir WIlliam, is indignant in his silence. Continuing to smoke his incense, staring blankly into the sky as if ruminating on a recent memory.

“This Michael guy. Tell me more about him”

“No, you shouldn’t be in my room. I just had the most lurid dream. It felt so..”

“Real? I know. I was there. You would think you humans would enjoy flying a lot more than that. It takes you so long to surrender. Frankly, I was a bit crossed. A tad bored. Till this Michael character came to your rescue. What do you know about him?”

There’s a certain curiosity Sir William must have towards me. This stupid--

“I encourage you to have kinder thoughts.” Sir William started to vanquish the embers of his incense, coughing delicately. Steadying himself, turning towards me. He looks at me with a familiar gaze. I’ve seen this before. His paw brushes through the length of his purple mane. His demeanor, far more stolid now than his carefree nature in the dream. Almost as if the reality here exhausts him.

“You know, I’m a shapeshifter. Would you like me to turn into Michael?”

“That would be strange, I can’t say I’ve met a shapeshifter before. You seem like a really useful pet. Meryll must be so pleased.”

Sir William stifles a chuckle. Then he starts to glimmer, emanating lights of green and yellow, obliterating into an odorless pink and purple smoke. Suddenly, he’s turned into Michael. But unlike Michael, he kept his opalescent eyes. He has all his mannerisms perfected, however, just as beguiling in the peculiar way Michael was. The same eerily familiar energy, a serenity I’ve only ever felt in Michael’s company. He says my name in the same familiar rhythm, my heart starts to sink into the knots of my stomach.

“Seems like you and Meryll have so much more in common than you think” Sir-William-turned-Michael proclaims with a hearty laugh.

“Is that so? Well, I don’t think that makes any sense at all. But now you must go.”

“So I gather you and Michael recently got into an argument. He recently got hired at your boarding school?”

“Yeah, we had a um-- wait a second why do you know so much about me?”

“The problem with you humans, is that you believe you are the center of the world. You believe no one is watching you. The universe is really just a unified whole. The trees, those lovely singing marigolds, the chaos, the peace. War and love itself are almost intertwined. People go to war because they only love themselves, their power. People want peace because they project their love outward, towards their love of humanity, their love of the world. Did you learn anything? You know, from your dream.”

I’m carried by the cadence of his voice, the familiarity of it, its timbre. Almost identical to the man I thought I loved, who always seems to abandon me at inopportune times. Always dazzling me with his wisdom and brilliance. Always making me feel whole, only to shatter me once more.

“It’s called GROWTH, Eloida. I told you to have kinder thoughts.” William is almost annoyed.

“You need to leave my room now, fake Michael. You can’t just impose yourself here and overwhelm me with your magic, and seeming omniscience. It’s startling, and inconsiderate. We’ve only been interplanetary for 5 years. And I need some distance from you, consistently shattering my worldviews, defying what’s familiar about space and time. I need the solace of what's familiar. And you can’t just waltz in here and disrupt my psyche. I mean this, Sir William, in the most respectful way. But you must leave me. Now, please?”

William-Michael, Michael William, tilts his head. Again in that cautious, calculating way Michael used to do when he is about to fill me with insights about the world.

“You have a good heart, Eloida. But this venom, it's always misdirected. Always aimed at people sent to help you. Be more attuned to the idea that you’ve yet to decipher the meaning of it all. You are highly favored. Just learn to surrender. And be careful. Meryll’s consciousness and celestial duties are at war. Learn to discern.”

A chorus of pink and purple clouds begin to bubble at his feet, ascending towards his face. Engulfing him.

Then he’s gone.

Completely vanished, then I am consumed with the realization. What if he’s not just a pet. What if I was just rude to the ultimate creator of all things bright and beautiful… all creatures great and small.

Well, shit. I hope he’s not God.

Then a piercing sound cuts through my thoughts, ringing in my ears. Almost as if I heard Michael say:

Eloida, Kind Thoughts.