The Medium

I.

My room is dark. The haunting sound of my heavy breathing confirms my existence; but I don’t want to be alive.

My skin flares red and I break into a chill. My body is hot to the touch; it feels as if a thousand needles pierce through my skin. The flesh on the back of my head still feels raw from my bike crash.

The thoughts of squirming on the track flash through my mind over and over. The laughter and hissing amidst the stadium. I’ve tried not to think about it… but the past 3 hours have been spent tossing and turning in failed attempts to rest.

I turn to my side to see my container of uppers resting on the table; I just got a refill yesterday.

One. Gulp.

Two. Gulp.

The bottle is still in my hands. I pour another handful into my palm. Five or seven, maybe, and place them at the back of my tongue.

As I’m about to wash the pills down, I feel something hit me on the back of my head. I try to catch my breath as I wheeze and cough up the pills that were meant to enter my body.

“What the –”

No one’s there.

“Who’s there?” I yell. My arms tremble and I feel terrified as I realize that whoever I just felt…didn’t want me dead. “Jokes on you. I’ll try again tomorrow! And the day after! This place will eat me before I can do anything anyway!” I laugh hysterically. Am I losing my mind?

“Yes. You are.”

I stop laughing; looking around the room, again.

“What do you want from me?” I whisper.

II.

My feet disappear into a bed of clouds. Pastel skies and sparkling stars paint the vastness around me; I feel safe.

I take a step forward and a golden gate towers through an infinite ceiling. The gate is cool to the touch and opens with ease. To my surprise, another gate identical in grandeur emerges. This happens over and over again, until my ninth attempt.

When the final gate opens, I’m awestricken by a giant black serpent of some sort slithering towards me from a distance.

It rises to reveal its’ emerald green eyes; its’ velvet-like tongue. As I marvel at its’ greatness in sheer wonder and fear, its’ dark hood spreads open like a lotus to reveal four more. A five-headed cobra hisses before my eyes and I bow.

As I stand to move in towards what appears to be another dimension, a brown owl flies onto the Cobra’s scaly bed. I pause.

“You’ve arrived too soon.” a soft voice says. “Come back later, I’ll be waiting for you.”

III.

“Rumi! Rumi!” Nami’s voice calls.

I wake in a shiver and look around the room. The sun shines through the small basement window peer.

“Wake up. Take your medicine.” she mumbles.

I stare back at her as she hands me one; as if I didn’t just approach the gates of Nirvana to my after-life. “Thanks.”

When she leaves the room, I get up and look around cautiously. I slide into a pair of jeans and freshen up for the day; a new mystery filling me with a motivation I usually wouldn’t have.

This morning, the trees are so bare you’d think they were barely alive. The dark bark sprawls through the clouds like veins of a beating heart. I feel their breath as they breathe with me through yet another day filled with beauty and questions unanswered. Too soon? I’m not sure what that owl meant, but I guess the best questions are the ones that force us to search for an answer everyday. They teach us in ways that are unlike the arithmetic problems or discouraging teachers who tried to convince us to remain within lofty confines. The best questions are mysterious and encouraging.

The beauty of my body’s abode is the chance to look outward and find companionship with others moving through the same motions and even similar tribulations.

Were those gates real? They must have been. But apparently it was too soon for me to walk through.

These mystical visions have helped me realize that the motions of this medium have to be experienced before ever walking through those nine gates. Despite my efforts to play the universe, my time had not yet come. The safety of the pastel array is worth every trial I may go through in this perishable medium. I would dedicate my whole life to it.