Post by The Gentleman on Sept 10, 2013 18:08:25 GMT -8
I once fell from a great height.
It still haunts my dreams sometimes, before (or maybe after, it's hard to tell) something happens. Something important. Something terrible. My eyes close and I'm young again, and all that surrounds me is the sky.
I thought I would be frightened. It seems like I should have been frightened. But instead, for the first time in my life, I felt a great sense of weightlessness. Not just of physicality, but of spirit. The weight of five thousand years of tradition and culture was like an old heavy suit I stepped out of in the plane before I jumped. The air that rushed past was like a cold blade that cut away all of the residue of my life. Who I was, how I had come to be, who I was becoming were all sliced away, leaving only me and the endless blue sky.
It was almost a disappointment when the chute opened. Once again I could feel the weight of life catch hold of me and begin to drag me inexorably down. I can't clearly remember any of the jumps I made, they all bleed together in my mind. The chute opens and I look up to see a blue so deep that I want to pour all of me out into it, but then I look down and I'm plummeting toward a dark earth, covered in shadow. I know that when I land, I will become something else. I will lose something important that I can never get back. There will never again be any innocence left to me. It will all be lost in French and German mud, soaked with the blood of millions.
I had that dream last week. It's why I came back to Seattle. It will probably be why I leave again. The court killed, hands on blades in Elysium, bared fangs everywhere you looked . . . the same as before, every time before. The dominoes fell in their neat line, and I felt almost beyond caring. That frightened me more than the claws and looks of those around me. I'm not old enough for that yet. I can't be. There are still people here I care about, and I'd like to do them a good turn before I need to move on. Before I have the dream again.
I'd like to stay, even though I can already feel the sky pulling at me. Seattle may be a hellhole, but it's the closest thing I have to a home. But . . . that color of blue makes me want to close my eyes and dream.
Maybe this will be the time I never hit the ground.
It still haunts my dreams sometimes, before (or maybe after, it's hard to tell) something happens. Something important. Something terrible. My eyes close and I'm young again, and all that surrounds me is the sky.
I thought I would be frightened. It seems like I should have been frightened. But instead, for the first time in my life, I felt a great sense of weightlessness. Not just of physicality, but of spirit. The weight of five thousand years of tradition and culture was like an old heavy suit I stepped out of in the plane before I jumped. The air that rushed past was like a cold blade that cut away all of the residue of my life. Who I was, how I had come to be, who I was becoming were all sliced away, leaving only me and the endless blue sky.
It was almost a disappointment when the chute opened. Once again I could feel the weight of life catch hold of me and begin to drag me inexorably down. I can't clearly remember any of the jumps I made, they all bleed together in my mind. The chute opens and I look up to see a blue so deep that I want to pour all of me out into it, but then I look down and I'm plummeting toward a dark earth, covered in shadow. I know that when I land, I will become something else. I will lose something important that I can never get back. There will never again be any innocence left to me. It will all be lost in French and German mud, soaked with the blood of millions.
I had that dream last week. It's why I came back to Seattle. It will probably be why I leave again. The court killed, hands on blades in Elysium, bared fangs everywhere you looked . . . the same as before, every time before. The dominoes fell in their neat line, and I felt almost beyond caring. That frightened me more than the claws and looks of those around me. I'm not old enough for that yet. I can't be. There are still people here I care about, and I'd like to do them a good turn before I need to move on. Before I have the dream again.
I'd like to stay, even though I can already feel the sky pulling at me. Seattle may be a hellhole, but it's the closest thing I have to a home. But . . . that color of blue makes me want to close my eyes and dream.
Maybe this will be the time I never hit the ground.