Ghosts
of winter moon (part three)
It rained while I was sleeping.
The ground was saturated with the fresh rain. As the mud and water washed
through it, the river regenerated to its normal form. The tranquility of
this world had returned. A mild wind blew through the air, a cool breeze.
There were some truths that I had spent many years running from. Having
faced them, I found that they had more sway over me than I had realized.
Many things I counted on seemed to have been lost. I was adrift again. The
sun felt brutal against my body. Its heat singed my shoulders, holding me
down under an impossible weight that seemed inescapable. I walked
alongside the river banks, letting the stones guide my path. Gradually I
walked upwards towards a hill. I saw a group of steps and they became
increasingly jagged as I climbed them, like knives on my feet. It seemed
to be an impossible task, the heat of the sun and the sharp steps became
overwhelming. It was a challenge that seemed to mock my efforts. Every
step burned my feet, the cool breeze became an increasingly distant
memory. An unsettling though occurred to me and I wondered what would
happen if I didn’t make it. Something kept propelling me forward, an
unseen force that seemed to help my steps, even though I didn’t realize
it at the time. I found something on the steps. It was merely a shard of
glass, but it seemed important. It was a sign I understood. I needed to
keep going forward, there was no alternative.
Once I reached the
path’s edge, a flat surface unfolded. I found myself looking around at
the this strange oasis in the middle of the chaos. I could see the river
flowing from a distance, a distant trickle beneath. The surface was
covered in grass, wild and tangled up, tall ferns streaking upwards, a
messy plateau where I stood for a period of time, waiting for a sense of
direction. I could feel the breeze lifting up towards my feet, blowing the
grass, adjacent to the skies that seemed to surround me. The sun beams
fell onto my head, but they didn’t seem as heavy up there. I walked
around and found that the surface under the grass was very strange, filled
with a kind of blue and green sand that didn’t seem to be of this world.
I stretched myself and kneeled down, and examined the sands. I held some
in my hand and found it to be strangely smooth and almost too clean. It
seemed to sparkle under the sun, almost glowing in a supernatural sense. I
thought that it was strange to find this kind of sand hidden underneath
the grass. Its existence seemed quietly reminiscent of something, yet
strange to the touch. It seemed out of place, yet also purposely designed
to attract questions. Its position under the brush was obvious if you
looked closely, yet unremarkable if you weren’t looking for it. I took
the time to look at it, and its blue and green contrasted the brown and
black sands in the river below. I wondered who had placed it here and
thought about its significance. Examining the dirt under my feet, I was
struck by something. It didn’t seem like the normal ice I’d
encountered before, but instead felt very smooth, almost like ice crystals
in perfectly round shape. It was like they’d been left there to clue me
in on something. If anything, it felt like the sands were a small piece in
an elaborate puzzle constructed by an unseen force, seemingly on purpose.
To what end was mysterious, and finding the answers seemed to be as
elusive and transient as a cool summer breeze.
Standing alone, I began to wonder what the purpose of this was supposed to
be. Was it a message, a signal or, some kind of warning? I couldn’t
really explain it then, and I can’t quite find the words to convey this
emotion now, either. It was just something I knew was there. The sun blew
its hot heat directly onto my head, the grasses stood still against its
endless waves of heat. I waited, I thought about running, but didn’t
know where to go. As I stood there, I could hear things underneath the
silence. In the distance, the river flowed and I heard its water gushing.
I knelt down again to look at the glassy sands beneath my feet –
examining each crystal for a sign. There was something I knew I had
missed, but I needed to discover what it was. Each color seemed to glisten
in the sun, trapped inside its strange container. It seemed almost alien
here, almost supernatural. I had a feeling that something important was
missing. As I lowered myself down, the air felt fresher, cleaner than it
had above. The sun’s heat hadn’t gotten to the earth yet, and it still
retained the wetness from the rain that had fallen the night before. I
looked closer, the sand had a definite sense of being turned on, as if the
water had energized it in some fashion, but I couldn’t explain exactly
what had happened, but the grains seemed to have come to a kind of life,
and they began to coalesce into some kind of strange portal, taking shape
as a kind of circular window. It seemed to have a familiar shape, a style
I remembered distinctly. It gradually grew until I was completely
surrounded and immersed inside it. The heat and sunlight vanished. I was
in a different place entirely. It was a strange and surreal place, where
everything seemed to have added meaning, every word meant something again.
I’m
not sure if I fell asleep again and this was another dream, or if it was
something else, but a connection that I had feared was lost came back
without warning. I had feared it was too late, that I could never go back
to that world, lost forever. Under the waves of grief, fear and sadness,
it felt like a distant echo. I faced this reality as best I could, trying
to make the best of things, trying to move forward. As the years passed,
the dreams I once had faded. Only distant outlines remained, they fell
apart and drifted apart, like windblown sand. As attention scattered, they
were ignored as they began settling on the ground. Alone and sat, they
were nearly forgotten. Changes came, sadness clouded my vision. Their
vibrant colors faded into brown and black, almost disappearing completely
in the ground. I walked right by, focusing on insignificant events. I
tried to run away, to put the past behind me. I thought I was succeeding,
but they always remained, lying in hibernation, right under my feet. The
leaves fell, storms came, sun and cold, through winter and summer,
darkness and light. Time passed, measured at first in days, then in years
but their essence was unchanged. I noticed that the colors began to
shimmer again, brought back to life by the small drops of rain, mixed
together by my touch, and reassembling themselves from shattered pieces.
It was a beautiful sight, and at that moment, I finally felt as if I was
alive again, after what seemed like an eternity walking alone in the
darkness. As I awoke from a long journey which took me through what I can
only describe as an emotionally disfiguring coma, something I had held in
a deep freeze, came back to life, warmed by the heat of my hand. As I
looked through the window, something overcame me that I couldn’t
explain, that no one else would be able to comprehend. My long journey
from mere thought to complete realization, one that couldn’t be measured
in steps or time or distance was finally coming back. I stepped through
the window, and found myself in a familiar place.
It was like home, I felt instantly safe, surrounded by its frigid beauty.
There was no one around, the wind was still. The distant snow drifts and
mountains made me feel at once alone and secure. As I remembered, it was
night, a constant state. When I looked up, I could see the stars shining
in their immeasurable distance, light years from where I stood. There was
none of the heat and feral light that tormented me on my trip through the
river and its pathways. In the distance, I saw the outlines of the cities
and walkways I had once traversed. I knew they were snow-covered, distant
and cold as they were, it felt quite reassuring in its stillness and
complexity. I looked above at the clouds, frozen in place, yet constantly
evolving at a glacial pace, yet also seeming unnatural in their
complexity, looking like they had always been there and would forever
remain so. They blanketed the sky without feeling oppressive. I felt the
glow of the moon on my back and as it began to rise in the distance, it
began to accompany its sister globe for another long night, like a lonely
voice in the darkness, keeping a flickering companionship so as the block
any sense of inner isolation. While I was completely alone on the moon, I
had the sensation that someone, or something was there with me. It seemed
to follow my steps, taking each measured move of mine into consideration.
Never moving close enough to feel threatening, yet never too far away.
There was a sense of safety here that I had not felt in many years.
It had been an
interminable time, perhaps a decade, since I had dreamt of this world. It
was so completely different than reality. It was slower, smoother,
comforting and relaxing. The heat had been a relentless beast stalking my
every step, yet this world was nothing like that. It remained consistent,
constantly cold and forever dark, yet also welcoming and comforting. I
looked down and saw the frozen ground, covered in countless small shards
of cold ice crystals and determined what I think might have happened.
Without even realizing it at the time, I had opened up the part of myself
that I thought had been left behind forever. I wandered through the frozen
world, unable to believe that I had returned home. The darkness that
seemed to have consumed me with its doubts and sadness began to lift under
the pristine night skies. Instead I was left in a familiar place, which
seemed to have not left the smallest detail to chance. I knew where I was
and recognized the surroundings as a seminal part of the past. What had
seemed to have become distant and sad, an echo of a memory growing
distance came back to life, fully functional and real.
It was as if time had
stopped, none of the horrible nights I had endured, walking alone while my
skin burned and wilted in the incessant heat of many long summers,
mattered now. The cold, night air began to permeate my skin and I noticed
some of the long-standing scars and scratches that were still visible
began to slowly fade away under the cold air, giving me a different
perspective on things. I came to the tree where I had seen her many times,
in many dreams before. It hadn’t changed – no storms ripped off any of
its branches. It hadn’t suffered or struggled against of the heat of
droughts or floods. It gave me a serenity to see it once again, as
majestic, immovable and mysterious as I had remembered. It towered above
me, shading the sister moon’s blue radiance while not completely
obscuring its presence. There was something almost immortal about this
tree and it gave off a sense of resilience and patience that only
something very old, yet still very young can create. Not knowing or caring
how long I had been there was a constant feeling on the moon. It wasn’t
a frightening or unsettling feeling, but it was a bit odd not to know
whether minutes or days had passed. I began to feel a little bit of the
journey’s effects on me, so I decided to sit down. Unlike the previous
tree I had taken shelter under, I did not fall asleep. Instead I gazed out
and soaked in a seemingly endless expanse of frozen, cold and beautiful
land. It was serene and still, cold and distant. I finally began to feel
safe in my thoughts, yet there was one though that puzzled me. I sat under
those protective branches, feeling safe and secure. Yet I wondered how,
after enduring so many struggles, encountering a seemingly impossible
number of intractable problems and with so much time having passed, I had
managed to create such an effortless path back there.
- Michael Palisano
Prelude: Gliding through Alien Skies
