V. H. King's Ink

“Do you understand now?”

I am not allowed to sleep.  Sinking into a loud silence, I am still awake.  I cannot control the not-quite visions.  There is an unfounded expectation, in the back of my head, that when I am at my full strength, I will reach for them.  Manifest sights on my own.  Discern scenes and meanings, mind as nimble-quick as a pianist’s fingers.

You never needed your eyes to see.

Something typed on a screen.

Something a spirit said to me.

Something reminding me of the proof that I didn’t need because I already knew.

You cannot stop the knowing.

I want to shake the truth off.  I am refused the luxury of denial.  I cannot hide behind how scary the path ahead of me might be.  It is not as terrifying as what lies inside me.  I square my shoulders and step outside the lies.  Wire-lines, from my spine to my heels.  Something ties me strong as silk-thread.

The first line of this story is a cliché, but it catches.  Snags.  Hooks, if only halfway.  Like my grip on this.  Magic, is what it is.  Not the sparkly fireworks kind, either.  Power presses against the insides of my palms.  Weighs heavy on my tongue. 

I wonder if I should say anything.  I am as afraid of speaking as I am of not speaking.  The urgency of the words is as frightening as whatever might tumble from my throat.  How much of this is real?  All of it, of course.  What good will my silence do me?  None.  Absolutely no good at all.

Watery echoes.

Resonance and whale-song.

The ocean has waves and trenches.  Caves and tunnels.  Deep along a corridor, after all the corners and turns and crossways.  There is no chair or stool in this room, but a figure sits—just out of my sight, and yet right in front of me.  I find myself on my feet in front of a door.  On the other side is the universe. 

The world entire, keeping its secret mysteries in its belly-button.  To my surprise, I’m not chided for this thought.  What I mistake for my own cynic bravado often arrows closer to the truth the exact moment I don’t want it to. 

A blank expression on a face that isn’t there.  Not grim.  Not impressed.  I should be safe here.  Still, I am relieved by the presence.  I do not trust myself as much as I should, just yet.  What thrums through me is terrifying.  The figure beside me is capable of absorbing it, if need be.  But there won’t be a need.  He is here to push me.

“I’ve passed my first test.”

But it is not the first test.  I am not the first.  Embodied, all over again.  How many of me have I been?  All of them, and still just the one.  How long until it feels like wholeness?

On the other side of that door, an always. 

Me, standing this side of it, an almost.

The crack beneath the door, the infinite decimal places between.

Nine and ten.

“We’re getting somewhere.”

Words neither said nor sent.  Real, nonetheless.  I know them all the same.  I know, and I cannot refuse.  Truth resonates in the bones.  Sometimes it sings like a rotten tooth.

The floor of this cavern-space is smooth dirt.  Cool, until you feel its vibrance, and then it becomes shocking.  Electric-hot turned to icy-anvil.  A womb from here to eternity.  The center of the earth, and all its hinges. 

The time is now.  My time is coming.  This is what I have always been.  Asleep at the bottom of the sea, tossing and turning in the sheets.

I will rise again.

Even if I don’t know how.

Even if I don’t know when.