Awakening

   Hiya, same thing as before, the 'Awakening' post is making it's reappearance! I'll be done with my deadline, and the whole of this term on Thursday this week, so hopefully Friday, I'll get on at least writing part 3 of 'The Following', which I didn't realise until yesterday was a TV series here in the UK, after I saw it in the newspaper. Oh well, I hope you like this, it's been chopped about a bit but I think it's better for it in many ways. 

http://www.zazzle.co.uk/heaven_and_hell_poster-228508853192806505

                I am awake. This world is not dissimilar to mine, yet it feels so abstract; so alien. It smells different and the clouds are pink; not in that lovely, almost dusk, sort of way, but rather, in way which screams of difference. I have never known the clouds to be like these. Nor have I ever encountered the strange feelings which are aroused by the curious little animals moving past, almost floating on the breeze. They are not unlike rabbits of squirrels, yet have a dark and mystical quality to them. I can only liken my feelings of awe and confusion to picking a sweet in the dark, and finding that it is not the flavour you’d been expecting. I wonder if I’ve regained consciousness at all, for the land which I find myself a part of is most certainly not the world which I left behind. I pinch myself; Pain. Certainly awake then, but how can this all be real?

                I wonder if there’s still a trace of the drug in my system; if the fanged, red-eyed animals caressing past me are, in actual fact, wrappers from crisps and sandwiches, dropped by careless individuals, whom my eyes do not perceive. I’ve been pumped full of morphine for days. No, weeks; months. I barely have a concept of time anymore and I’m not even sure if my pain has been taken away or repressed. Maybe I can still feel it - but then, really, I can’t feel anything.

                The creatures are circling me now and I can see myself reflected in their glass-like red eyes. I don’t know if they’re hostile or if they just want to be helped, loved, like I do. Their appearance was at first startling, however I seem to have grown used to it over the short time I’ve been here. S I watch them, their appearance seems to be softening – though perhaps that is my own perception as a result of not finding them quite so fearsome any more. They are moving away now, some of them seem to be guiding me, others seem to be trying to tempt me from the path. Even though I have no knowledge of this world; I can safely deduce that to stray from the path is foolish.

                I’ve been standing completely still for this time, not daring to move, less I fall into some sort of void in this illusion. I decide to take the risk. I squeeze my eyes shut and pin my arms to my sides. I move one foot out in front of me and hold my breath, muscles tightening. Then my foot lands. I open my eyes and peer tentatively to the floor. The ground is solid, but there’s something quite strange about it which I am, at present, unable to identify. I decide to walk on, hoping to find some sort of explanation of the universe in which I find myself present. The nature around me (if you can call it natural) moves and dances alongside me as I make my way down a slowly emerging path.

                The scenery appears to be moving - as opposed to myself - so I look back down at my feet, and realise that they seem to be floating. Shocked, I kneel down in an attempt to disprove my theory. Imagine my combined relief and awe when I placed my fingertips delicately on the floor, to find that it is made of glass! I at first believed it to be a mirror, however just as soon dismissed this idea, on account of only being able to see my own reflection very slightly.

                I stand, trying to take in as much of the place as I possibly can. In terms of colour; it’s mostly yellow - the colour of duckling feathers in the spring sunlight – calm and soothing. There are flashes of pink from the clouds, and splatters of lilac foliage. I wonder if I’m in heaven.

                The small animals have gathered close around me again, they are stifling me. I feel hot and cold, and weightless and heavy all at once. I feel like laughing, like crying, like screaming; like vomiting. I didn’t know I could feel like this, but then again; I don’t know what I was feeling. What I’m feeling is the result of my brain shutting down. I heard them saying a while ago that they were going to ‘pull the plug’, as it were. At the time, I was angry with them, all of them. I didn’t want to die and I didn’t understand why they didn’t care if I did. Then I heard my mother whisper ‘I love you, darling’ into my ear, ever so tenderly; the way she always did, and a sense of calm washed over me.

                I’m not sure if you ever truly come to terms with your own death; but in this instance, I felt pretty close. I’ve not heard anything more for a while now. I’m going to miss them.

                I walk on, trying to look around, however finding myself captivated by what lies beneath the glass path. The colours under my feet are altering, yellow darkening to orange, pink to crimson. Eventually it becomes a swirling smog of black and blood-red. It brought such pangs of fear and trepidation to my heart. I look up, intending to run from the blackness below, only to find that the plane I was inhabiting had begun to mirror the one below. I let out a small yelp, which made no sound. This was the first time that I noticed the absence of sound in the world. Until now, I had been so wrapped up in the colours and beauty in the world that I forgot leaves are partial to rustling, while birds have a tendency to chirp.

                The black and scarlet clouds were now whipping around into a spiral of tentacles, reaching out to me, ever so gently. I stood frozen in shock. I should mention retrospectively, that standing still in such a situation is ill-advised; as, at that very moment, one of the tentacles took hold of me around the waist and withdrew me into its midst.

                I believed this would be my conclusion. However, after a few terrifying minutes of being thrown around by what I could only perceive to be clouds; I was spat out, landing heavily on the glass floor. I felt shaken, but relieved. I sat motionless for a moment of indeterminable time, observing the ordinary colours of the world return. I was about to stand when a sickening crack pierced the silence, drawing more attention to the fact that, until now, there had been not one instance of noise. I looked around, expecting to see the branch of a tree fall, or a storm cloud building. There was nothing; and then I was falling. Falling into obscurity, into the bottom half of this inexplicable place. I felt like I had no substance, I felt like Alice when she fell in Wonderland. I felt free. I Knew I was dying. Then the world went black again, but this time, it was peace.       

            I hope you liked this, I'm quite fond of it as a piece and I think it's a bit of a display of the way that I place so much emphasis on colour, as discussed in my synaesthesia post. Aside from that, I'm hoping to be back soon with something new, assuming that between now and 3pm on Thursday, I don't have a massive, brain melting break-down :)

                            Thanks for reading! Laura

                                                           xoxoxox