You’re home

It was calm. The sweet light of day had faded out and I saw flashes. Calming flashes of warm rays and dreams… were they dreams? Were they reality? Which way was up and how far was down. I drifted on. Rolling through all the pain and pleasure that life could give. There was no need for worry or pain… Or sorrow. I finally felt like I was floating along the silvery river of my dreams. ”Can you see it!? It’s right there in front of you…“ a voice from inside my heart spoke softly to me. It was only a distant prodding, but it was still as clear as a bell and beckoned me to reach my hand out and touch what I could only possess for a short time. I let my hand slip from my side… and drag across the sweet waters that flowed around me… I was snagged back with a jolt! Writhing and twisting my body flailed in the pull of the damp shirt on my back.

When they pulled me from breaking waves and I finally came to, it was night. My head was throbbing and I could tell that our journey was not as smooth as we had planned. The boat, gone. Guided by hands that I had come to know too well, I was lifted into the back of a vehicle… But not before being dragged by my shoulders across the cold, coarse sand. Shells digging into my heels as my bare feet created a snail path from the waters edge up to our getaway. There was the smell of fish and decay all around us as I winced from the sharp path. The dream I had been drifting through was so peaceful… I wished that they had let me continue to reach for what was my heaven… my oasis, but we have a strict policy of no Man left behind. The only way for us to survive in this world.

It was just the three of us now. Our numbers were reduced only because we lost one. The only one who in the most recent time made the world worth living in.

They took her. They took her away. So young and free… so in love and full of life. She was the only one who understood my dreams and my goals… and they took her far far away…

My wishes…our wishes… and now all I have is a memory. A memory that is burned into me like a tattoo upon my heart. future and dreams. She was going to be there in all the things… good and bad.

I loved her!

I loved her more than this world could ever offer… If this world could even offer anything for me. Ever since ”it” happened the world hasn’t been the same. From a simple, beautiful sunrise across the vast sea to destruction and sadness pouring out from every ounce of the bowels of life. These burning skies that had no way to be quenched burned around us as if hell itself became our home.

We just kept on running. Running faster and faster and farther away.

It wasn’t all bad in this world when it started. At first, while we were running, we proved to ourselves that there was more to life than tangible things and the need to impress others around us. It was only after it happened that we finally found each other and could truly learn to love… I just happened to fall further than the rest… I had leaned towards heavier feelings toward someone I never imagined I’d find. Feelings I couldn’t resist and I wasn’t alone. She reciprocated with more than I could imagine.

I cried out in the night and through the dark machine, “Where am I!? Where is she, is she OK?”

“You were only dreaming… Rest a while so that you can get your strength back. It won’t take us long to find the next checkpoint. We should be safe there.”

It took a longer while than anticipated. My pain ebbing and flowing from the vehicle bouncing. It took us at least an hour before the road finally smoothed and I forgot the suffering and that my entire body ached.

Lifeless, I remained in the back seat behind them. they were my friends… But I was losing every ounce of the will to live. The will to hold on and keep fighting. I lost my reason for fighting…

My fingers and hands were shaking and with each Mile that we traveled down the road I felt weaker. Damp light seeped through the foggy windows as we drove on.

I fought so hard. For too long a time. Further from my oasis, my hope and my strength. The ocean had been a home to me in this torturous expanse and I was losing it as well…. faster and faster with every rotation beneath me.

“Spoil me again with the salty sea air…” I let a guttural whisper leak from my salty, cracked lips. My chest was heaving at this point and my eyes could not focus on any one thing that darted around my dazed and dissolving vision. “Stand by me again sweet pillar of refuge. Before I am lost without you to save me from the tides.”

It was an old poem that I had remembered from before the chaos. It was coming back to me just like the dreams and the memories flooded through my mind. “ whitecaps and spray stick to my skin, but my pillar of refuge is where I reside.…”

A pulse of stinging heat ran through my body. I jolted from the seat slightly, enough to make my comrades worry and turn to greet my woeful state.

“But she was so close! I could hear her calling out to me… Our hands… They were so close.”

My voice got weak. I drifted in and out of consciousness as we crept along and the slow hum of an engine brought us closer to the next checkpoint and further away from the ocean spray… One of few things that gave me some comfort and hope.

I remembered the days when we would sit on the beach.. Hand in hand and talked about the future.

“What do you think they’ll look like?!” She would ask with a gleam in her eye and a smile. I would reply that I hope they will have your nose… they will have my smile and we will dance with them… smiling she would push me over… kiss my cheek and… in the kindest tone sing to me. As I lay comfortably on her chest; the rustling waves licked our toes and brought feelings of ecstasy…

But no more, it's all dashed away just like the breaking of a wave along the beach and pulling itself back further and further with each journey we had to make… Each checkpoint to “safety”, that was no safer than the next. Seeking shelter from any and all who hunted and sought after us. Until there were no more checkpoints. In my heart there were no more safe zones to be found and no more ways out except to find her again. To leave the checkpoints behind and grow anew in the light I saw in that drowning dream.

“He looks glassy eyed… Is he going to make it? How long was he underwater?…”

“I don’t know… But is it worth him staying around if we have to keep saving him? Ten days! It’s been ten days of us putting up with pulling him back.”

I knew I was holding them back. These past 10 days crossing from one end of the coast to the other just to bypass all of the commotion has been hard without the one person who believed in me.

“He did save us multiple times since everything went upside down… these trips aren’t easy with less people… And he has never given up before… until now.”

“Maybe it is his time. And I don’t wanna give up on him, but he looks like he’s fading…”

They were right. I wasn’t gonna last much longer in this state. Whether I wanted to or not. My hope was gone in this god forsaken world, my dreams were shattered… Every painful moment that I would breathe in this dismal abyss that had become of life has been made harder by the loss of the one I loved. Everything that gave me purpose had departed and it was time to let go. I closed my eyes one final time and reached into my pocket.

There it was.

I couldn’t see it but I knew it was shining. Shining like the heart of gold that strayed from my side…

The locket that she gave me that held our picture from the last time we were free… the last time we sat on the beach and the sand between our toes… only months ago and still the sweetest moment we had ever spent. Her hand clasped around mine. Eyes burning into one another’s souls and wishing for the moment to never end.

I spun it between my fingers as the chain tangled and twisted around each appendage. Cold and yet warmer than the night air that whipped around the car. My hand clutched tight around it as I could feel myself losing consciousness for what might become the last time in the thunderous turmoil that has become the earth we live in.

And I smiled…

Her voice Came through quietly at first. “Come with me, take my hand. You can do it, you’re almost there… Just reach out a little further. The light is so warm here. I’m waiting for you…you shouldn’t give up on me yet. We still need to dance some more”

I spoke my final words at that moment. To the ones who saved me, or so they had thought saved me. My comrades for such a long and torrential time.

“I’m free…” I muttered.

As my shaky breath and trembling voice dismissed my soul from my companions. The silver river returned as it flowed and rushed around me. Not caused by the drowning ocean or tides pulling me, but more so by the letting go of this sad existence. I felt weightless as the current pushed stronger and my body gained momentum. Forcefully I maneuvered through my past, present and then… my future. It was like flying! Her voice got stronger and stronger in my ears…”You can do this! I see you moving and I believe in you…” Ringing louder as I drifted closer to the radiant beam that called me as if I were nothing more than an obedient puppy being beckoned by their owner. Lights surrounding me now; I couldn’t go any further without squinting to even make out silhouettes, shapes… anything.

Then…

A sound louder, yet quieter than I ever heard burst through my unconsciously, conscious state. It Sent me spinning and reeling in circles. No more pain. The suffering body that I felt just moments ago was gone. The spinning began to subside while the light started to warm up to a blackish-red glow. The kind of feeling and sight you get when waking from a dream. Waking slowly and seeing the world through the back of your eyelids. How could this be? Have I been sleeping? Was the nightmare a dream?

My eyes opened to see blinding lights of the doctors office and the only person standing there waiting for me… it was her. My journey is over… The checkpoints were no more… And I had reached my final destination.

Ever since I have been in the coma I have been lost in wandering. I lost everything… But I have finally made it back. As my hand drifted from my side up my chest I could feel the locket…

“You’re home”, she danced the words into my ears and wrapped them tight around my heart… through tears… she weeped… “you’re home.”