A vision

You wake up somewhere where you did not fall asleep. The night is bright, not hot and not yet cold but on the verge of it, you vaguely recognize where you stand, yet the roads look different, cleaner more beautiful than they used to; bathed in the golden light of a series of imposing halogen lamps, that stretch on for as far as your eyes can see.

You know this place or have known it, it all comeback as a forgotten memory, its where the art museum used to stand or still stands you cannot tell, it should be on the opposite side, but you don’t see it instead a neon sign catches your attention, the letters are English yet you can’t read it, before you even try you see a man, you notice his grey green coat and dark sunglasses, dark sunglasses darker than the night, your eyes follow his cane right down to the bright red tip, you knew he was blind before you even reached the red part yet you had to make sure of it. he smiles a scary smile in the neon lit dark, it shifts colours from green to purple, is he looking at you, he must be there is no one else but you, you don’t know what to do, you look into his dark glasses, you feel an urge to go to him but you are afraid, yet you move towards him, mark you do not walk to him, yet a genteel force pulls forward, you do not resist you keep looking into his pitiless eyes.

You stand under his gaze, he’s still smiling, his teeth are stained yellow. His hand slithers into his coat he pulls out a silver and ivory snuffbox which opens with a will of its own; he pinches some of the brown dust, and sniffs, you hear a rattle somewhere in his throat. His smile is extinguished, you look at him and you think he resembles Ray Charles, but you cannot remember a single song by ray Charles, you crave to hear some blues, yet all you hear is silence, and your thoughts which don’t make any sense. The dark man stretches his arm out to you, sitting squarely in the centre of his palm you see the open snuff box, you notice the delicate floral lattice of silver over the ivory, you notice the initials of B.C.R under the lid of the snuff box, they mean something to you, something dear, you know this, yet you don’t know what it means. You want to take a pinch of the brown powder, you want to lose yourself, or find yourself in it, but you are afraid, afraid that you will reach out, and that lid will close for ever. The lid does close, and his hand slithers back into the coat from whence it came. You look up to where his eyes should have been, and you see yourself looking into your own eyes in his dark as the night sunglasses. You want to ask him something, you know you have come here to ask him, but the question escapes you, you do not know what to do, you stand looking at yourself, look at yourself. His face changes, it’s still the same yet different, you still know him but have forgotten where you last saw him, then he speaks, his lips do not move, only opens the slightest to let out a voice, a voice so familiar, that you cannot place it, you have heard it some time in a past life.

“you have come here, at last...”

You do not know how to react you want to say something but your voice is choked, you feel a strong knot bundle up in your throat. You forget how to speak, you know, you have to ask something very important, but you need to figure how to talk, you think of the question that you want to ask, you thoughts echo in your head, nothing seems to make sense and then he speaks again, in that same smooth voice, smooth as black polish on brand new black shoes, polished smooth enough to see your own dark pupils staring back at you from the dark soul of the shoe.

“it’s not answers, you are looking for... you know them already, you know them because i know them, what you so desperately seek are the questions, you seek the doubt, yet you are afraid of finding it, because you know the answer to that question, thus rendering the both pointless, absolutely pointless, meaningless, and the chaos of it all seems so symmetrical, so organised, like the contents of the kaleidoscope, you played with as a child, and that’s the truth that you already know but refuse to accept, except you already know that in not asking the question that so ingeniously has escaped your mind; like water in a clenched fist, you have accepted the truth....”

Your mind is not clam everything seems so simple so plain, you believe that its all resolved that you can return, but return where, you do not know, you start hearing your voice again, the question echo, they do not make sense, and then finally, like the spark of flint in the dark night one question ignite a fire, how did he know, you wanted to ask a question but did not know what to ask him, how did he know you came to meet him, suddenly you realize that you cannot speak, did the blind man then read your thoughts, you want to ask him, but you do not know how to.

He smiles you see his yellow teeth, you want to stop him from smiling but you cannot feel your arms, you can feel your fingers, but the rest of your arm is dead. You hear him laugh, its a low troubled husky laugh, a laugh of a dead person, from beyond the grave. He turns away from you and you hear him say,

“If i said i couldn’t, would you believe me?...”

You stand rooted, he begins to walk away, you notice he does not have any shoes on, his cane tapping against the grey cobbles in a rhythm that sounds similar, it must be morse code, but you do not know morse code, you watch him walk down the street, you cannot see him but you can still hear the morse code tapping of his cane you know that it is important to remember the code. He is gone now but you can still hear the tapping of his cane, you are not sure whether it stuck in your head or he is still sending you a message from the other side.

You look at the ground before you, then the stone wall against which the dark blind man was leaning against, you notice the large door frame, set in stone, like the ones they used to make a long time before. Its large door and it has a smaller door set in it. You know it’s open even before you touch it. You know you must go through it, it opens smoothly, without uttering a single complain. The passage is dark, as black as can be, black enough to absorb all the light and still nor reveal any of its secrets. You know it is the only path that you can take, you know there can be no escape from fate, unwillingly you feel your legs move, and involuntarily you step into the darkness, you feel yourself cut off from the rest of the world.

You look behind but cannot see the street, it’s all gone dark, black is all you can see. You cannot make out whether your eyes are open or closed, you want to run but your legs don’t exist in the dark, you just hang there suspended in the black mist of darkness, until your body fades away and you become one with the dark free to glide within it, aimlessly seeking release. You know there is none, you know that you are shackled to nothing in the abyss, it’s freedom is your prison, and then you fall.

Through the darkness, you keep falling, and then you make contact with something hard yet not hard enough, you feel your body as an afterthought, it’s not so dark now, your head shoots out from your pillow, your head throbs, you must be having a hangover, that must have been a dream but you are not sure, you look into the mirror of your dark room, you see yourself you move closer to your reflection, and look into its dark pupils, in that darkness you can still see a darkness, a part of you that remains no matter how hard you try to forget, and you must wonder then if it is really you....