Dreaming Again: A Novel

I was alone – utterly and totally alone. There was no sound and no thoughts but the oblivion that stretched endlessly around me. In this oblivion was an overwhelming sense of peace and solitude. If I tried hard enough and long enough I could make out the faint haze of the edge of the world that kept me secluded. Flickering, dancing pinpoints of light existed along this edge and I thought perhaps they were just like me --alone and confused.

I was isolated from them, as I hardly understood why I could see them but never get close enough to touch them. I chased them – trying to reach the edge – until my legs ached and I gave up. Those closer I believed I was getting the farther away they really were.

When despair set in over this failure the colours would come; my brilliant, vibrant, shimmering colours. Without knowing where they came from I loved them. They swirled when I raised a solid, invisible, hand to move them around. They crept over my fingers and kissed their way along my hand before evaporating into the air only to be replaced by a new, more lively set. They were enough to distract me from attempting to reach those dancing stars that shone much brighter then they.

The colours were beautiful; looking at them for too long left an ache in my chest I couldn’t fathom. The colour blue in itself had the power to hold me for hours, years, in dreamy awe. So pure of color was it the darkest depths hinted at all the other colours it had the potential to become.

The first time the colours came to me I was desperately trying to reach the lights in the distance in a pained daze. The colours surrounded me and loved me and stopped me from going any further. They bathed me in their light and imaginary heat and so easily made me fall in love. I spent hours –years—playing with them, loving them, worshipping them, and wishing I were they. When they would leave me again would come the desire to reach those distant stars. The urge to reach them, as if I belonged with them, the colours would come again and stop me.

I was alone but I was happy. The colours kept me happy with their dancing rainbows. They gave me a peace I had never felt as they buzzed around me. Because of them I forgot about everything else, things I needed to remember, and I only knew them. The only thing that mattered was that I got to play with the colours. In this silent abyss of oblivion they were my only companions.

I was never fully aware how long I spent with my colours. When they were around I had no need to try to track the passage of time. When they left I yearned for them and things I could not remember. Each hour –years—trickled past unheeded amongst these emotions. Time, I believed, did not matter. The only thing that could have alerted me to how long I had stayed suspended with them, and even only if I were paying attention, was the detached feeling of there being two of me.

I never guessed in the beginning that it was the colours doing this to me. Poisoning me from myself. I was slowly becoming two one who loved the colours and one who hated the colours. I knew the part of me filled with hate – it only surfaced when the colours were gone and not a second sooner – was the important part of me. I knew I should not forget him but I slowly was. Losing my grip on him and his importance was easiest when the colours were around. His hatred of the colors scared me and I tried to flee when he was near; unwittingly I fled closer to the distant lights.

The colours, however, remained between us as an ashen thread forever connecting my love and his hatred.

The colours in all their glory damned me by keeping me a prisoner. I was lost in disillusionment and confusion but I did not care. They loved me and I loved them.

It was forever, seconds, when something changed in my world. I did not know then the colours would lose their all-consuming importance. It happened so fast that afterwards I was still reeling and unable to comprehend. This change, like so many things, was centered on the colours.

I was playing with them, the greens I loved the most, huddled in a corner trying to ignore the hatred blazed in my direction. He had grown stronger as the days went by and the only thing that made him keep his distance was the barrier of blacks and grays. These dark colours kept me protected and I was content.

It was then she came when my back was turned so.

The other me, the Important me, knew who she was and gloried in her appearance. The blazing hatred changed to a thankful awe and bitterness at her late arrival. At this sudden change of emotion my head snapped up and I turned around. The colours fluttered in my ear as they attempted to turn my head and attention back to them. I first saw her through the haze of blacks and grays and for a passing second I was curious. The colours next to me dimmed before blazing brighter. The shimmering of the greens was enough to lose me again in their depths. I began to ignore her and without even knowing her I knew she was displeased.

All I wanted to do was play and forget. She wished for none of it and with a sharp command in a burst of sound that I could not recognize the colours stopped their games with me. They left me in waves and broke my heart a little each time. The colours were obedient to her command and they circled around her in a frenzied, apologetic dance. I was embittered and heartbroken at this seeming theft. The Important me found pleasure in my displeasure. He saw each fleeing colour as a triumph over something I could not grasp. I watched my colours and I was jealous.

This intruder of my oblivion ignored the colours the moment they left me alone. They entangled themselves in her glossy sable hair as they whispered their secrets. The pinks and reds caressed her porcelain cheeks in soft, feather kisses they had once only given me. They pulsated with their movements and I knew they were no longer mine.

“ Beautiful, are they not?” Her voice stunned and enraptured me. The sound of her voice was rich and textured, I saw it more then I heard it and I was stunned that I could understand her. When she spoke it was in a tide of purples and greens. They danced from her mouth as she had breathed them and they came to curl in front of me before they vanished. She held me captive and I understood it was she who had created the colours. I loved her then upon this epiphany and wanted her to speak more. When she did nothing more then watch me in silence that lacked any colours it was I who spoke. My voice was rusty and harsh with disuse.

“ I’ve never seen anything like them before.” I whispered softly as my voice rose and broke as if I had never spoken before. It took effort to make these sounds and with in moments I wanted to sleep and drift off. Too consumed with the effort I did not notice the lack of colours. My words rang with a truth that surprised me. In a time before the oblivion I had never noticed how beautiful colours could be. In that time their shades were dull and did not generate the warmth and love I felt.

She smiled at me and my heart broke all over again. I loved her, oh how I ached for her love! She did not love me, I knew that, but she had come to me despite this. The colours finally stopped their frenzied apologies and rested around her head in a chastened rainbow crown. She was beautiful; she was everything that surrounded me. Her eyes were the darkest green that the depths of them appeared black. It trailed off into such blackness I had no doubt that time and all existence would cease if I ever got to the bottom of them.

“ Colours are only what you make of them,” she raised her palm towards me, “ Everything is what you can make it only if you listen.” She blew gently into her palm then in a swirl of pink. The colour quivered in her hand as she raised to it her ear to demonstrate her meaning. A thoughtful look crossed her face as she listened. Once the secrets between them were shared she lowered her hand with a pleased smile.

As she held her hand out again I leaned forward with wide-eyed wonder. So close I had leaned I could feel the heat of the colour tickle against my cheek. Both parts of myself watched as she cupped her hands together and once more blew against the colour. The light of the pink increased and multiplied until it had formed the petals of a rose. The colours had whispered their wish to her and they gave up their existence to live on in the beauty of a flower. This feat bewildered and scared me as I leaned back and away from her and this now dead color.

“ If you take the time to listen, life is something that you alone have the power to control.” The purple and greens of her voice swirled around and stroked my hair. I flinched away from them as her words unsettled me. The Important me watched her and nodded. He knew what she meant and I did not. I did not want to understand her as he did. I tore my gaze away from the flower and her and looked at the ground. She watched me with eternal patience, as she knew I did not understand. She wanted me to understand – she needed me to understand.

The Important me stepped forward and cleared his throat. Immediately the darker colours that wrapped themselves around her ankles like chains leapt forward to embrace him. He gave them no heed and for the first time I felt angered. The colours, even ones I did not like, were not to be ignored.

Dark colours danced around his coppery auburn hair, they shined against his violet blue eyes. He was I but I hated him for not loving as I did.

“ That rose is beautiful but beauty, and whispers do not stop death.” His voice was a swirl of silver and blue and echoed around us. I looked up to fill my gaze with him as my anger dissolved into a curious fear. This was the first time he had outwardly spoke or acknowledge me and I was deeply afraid of the unknown meaning of his words.

“ Even Death can be what you make it.” He continued in his low, sensous voice. He placed his hand over the glowing rose and after several long seconds he removed it again, “ Death is just another step needed to be taken.”

The rose gave a soft sigh as it slowly began to darken. Once it was marked with a red dark enough to look black the petals began to wilt. Before my eyes several petals broke off and fluttered to the ground with a soft, whispering sound that reminded me of tears. The colours of his voice died away only to be replaced by the comforting ones of her voice.

“ Death makes way for new life,” she gestured with a fragile hand at the ground, “ If you listen, it will tell you it is the way of nature.” My eyes followed her hand to the fallen petals. They embedded themselves into the ground of oblivion and tender new shoots sprang upwards. I looked at both of them, straining to understand and reject the meaning of their words. He watched me with contempt while she watched me with patient pity.

“ Why must things die?” My voice croaked and held no colour. I knew then all colour had left me. The lack of colour in me felt like death and the smallest prick of understanding buried into my mind.

The Important me looked at her with deep concern concealed within his hate. He looked as if he wished to speak. I knew he wanted to speak more to me and make me understand but she stopped him with a slight shake of her head. Only the small movement of her sable hair alerted me to her part of the silent exchange of words.

“ Isaiah,” she turned towards him, “ This is something you can not answer for him.” Even though her voice was soft his eyes burned deep with anger. He was being dismissed and it made him angry. With a curt nod the silver and blue that he was ceased to be. It was only she and I. As she stepped closer to me she brought the traitorous colours within my grasp. I turned my attention to them and yearned for them as a spurned lover. I watched them despite the fact I wished to turn away to mourn them.

I wanted them back. I reached out my hand knowing they would never return.

“ You need to elevate yourself out of this prison of yours,” she gave an amused smile, “ as delightful as you have tried to make it it's still a prison. If you only had listened to what the colours were trying to say, you would have moved on.”

Before I could protest that the colours had never spoken to me she did something that silenced me. Holding out her hand she swirled the colours that surrounded her one last time until they began to drip between us to form a circle. My hand dropped uselessly to my side as I watched in horror. The colours became a swirling abyss and I feared with understanding at this point they would be no more. She dipped her slender finger into the middle of it and they ceased to swirl. Giving one last glorified flash of bright, shimmering colors they died and became a reflective surface.

“ What is this?” My voice broke as tears trickled down my face as I leaned forward in hopes of seeing any evidence of what the colours once were.

“ Look and listen, and tell me what do you see?” Her voice was soft and colourless. It was the first time in my mind I had heard her speak without the aid of colours. Blinking slowly, I leaned close into the mirror. Its surface rippled lightly as if the wind or my breath had touched upon its surface. The rippling stopped and I was curious.

I saw my reflection, and then I saw nothing, and heard everything. It was a vast, buzzing emptiness filled with all the things I knew I had done but could never remember. It was that emptiness that vast, cold, loveless emptiness reflected back at me that sent me fleeing from the mirror with a muffled sob.

“ What did you see?” Her voice became more demanding, more important.

“ Nothing, I saw nothing!” I had lied and I had spoken the truth. With a wave of her hand the mirror dissolved and she gave me a sad smile.

“ Did you hear the whispers?” I ignored her at first. I was filled with a sudden urge to run from her – to push her away and be done. When she did not leave upon my silence and it drew out between us like a sharp edge of disappointment I finally spoke.

“ Everything.” There was heartbreak and anguish in my words.

“ Tell me the story they confided in you.” There was pleading in her words.

I did. I told her a story.