8Dreaming of Eden
At times, I can dream.
And then the world is hushed. It's the beat of a soft drummer at the corner of the stage. No-one sees him in the half-shadows, tapping out rhythms like frantic, skipping heartbeats. My eyes are roving—people, dim and shifting on soft poufs. Orange candlelight throws a few faces into soft relief.
A woman with dark lipstick leans close to the man beside her. She murmurs something low and he chuckles softly; hand on arm. Suddenly, I wish that he would look at me like that. He who is undefined and as yet waiting to be born. Enter, stage right.
A dark-skinned child curls up against the midnight velvet. Her brown head rests on the knee of her father and her voice is petulant. I'm tired, daddy. When are we going home?
Home.
I'm not sure when it is I traveled the distance. Perhaps sometime in that blink between the here and forever. But I know that when I am next aware, the night is the deepest of purples; slow and breathing and mine. Stars echo and the sliver of moon covers the vast landscape (sand, desert) in shades of slow paint. A cold, feral storm trailing the essence of a waking memory stirs—shifts the sands beneath me until a pattern is recognized.
Until it's all familiar again.
Who is the woman that greets the desert like her own?
In this dream, I have returned.
Who is the woman, infinitely sad?
When I am home, things begin to grow again. Between my feet, firmly rooted, grass begins to raise in shy peaks and even white marble rises from the hot sands and constructs around me. Palaces, temples, I can only guess. And white flowers burst among them like splashes of milky water. Like light and truth and all things clothed in innocence. Vines curl around my legs, my arms. My face is to the sky, cold and clear. Dawn.
It is the beginning all over again.
My clothes no longer chafe; are now as soft as the air on bare arms. And I need not look to see the city, small and regrowing around me.
Regrowing Eden?
She is the mother of the First City
The Lady
Fertility
Love her
Fear her.
"Is this what you really want?"
This time, he comes forward. Into the light of the sun through shattered glass. Still beautiful to look at in it's crumbled, jagged edges. Edges that could cut, kill with the right application. Still catching and refracting the light.
I do not answer, How can I? His eyes are blue in the light, though I've never taken note of them before.
"There are many ways to be happy."
I can hear his voice in my head now, The human heart is changeable. I know, but you must choose.
A pause.
"I will."
The shadows blur and he is gone.
The sunlight now grows, expands and fills the room until all is white. I see the city, deserted and full of ghosts that still linger in the walls, move the palm fronds. Whispering as I pass on the wickedness of men. Mournful tones.
I am dying, but it is slow and planned, and the dream is done.
A/N: o_o. Yes, I know. Very odd for me, but it is a faithful (I hope) recreation of a dream I had last night.
After not being able to sleep (thinking, oddly enough, about the Bible) until about 2 a.m., I got to sleep and had this weird dream. It's actually been a recurring dream, but the first part was new. Woke up around 6 a.m., but I wasn't tired so I sat right down and wrote it out before I could forget details.
And also: The..pseudo-poem kind of woven in between? Well, like I said, I kind of wrote this in a haze. I just kind of…typed it out and it seemed to fit. Sort of.
I also realize that this is really (probably excessively) prose…ish. I probably should have made it a (very long) poem. But the whole idea was to describe a dream…and I got carried away…so, nah! ^_^
So, uh, yeah. Critique, please? When I wrote this, my brain was still a little fuzzy…