Walking through a field, smells like it just rained. The grass under my bare but whole feet as I look down on them, was bright and vivid green. The ants visible on blades of grass as they move about. I could feel my feet on the ground but my head felt as if I was flying in an air plane and observing my feet from thousands of miles in the air. As I walk I hear footsteps other than my own. Hurried and shuffling, voices strong and full of purpose, and some, at this point, soothing calm music.
The fact that I have all my toes and pink soft feet becomes old news some how and I look up. Not to the front of me but straight up. The entire sky looks like it does at sunset here in south Florida, as if four suns were setting in all four directions. Cotton Candy on a blue felt backdrop. They were all moving uniformly the shape, color, and shading of each cloud stayed the same. It was so pronounced that I could not resist walking in that direction. I stepped forward still looking up, in awe of the absolute edibility of the clouds in the sky.
Mmm Cotton Candy.
I licked my lips and could almost taste and feel the crystals on my chin when my step put my leg mid calf in a cool pool of clear water. I looked down at my foot worried the water might make my feet worse. Before the instinct to pull my foot out took control I remembered they had, somehow, been healed. Wiggling my toes into the soft sandy bottom smiling, letting my other foot disappear below the water. It was so cool, and clear I could see the sand on the bottom was the whiter than any sand I had seen on any of the islands I have visited on cruises. I reached in and took up a hand full watching it flow thru my fingers smooth like baby powder. This is when my eyes focused on the landscape around me.
I was in a valley, large and very plains like. There were hundreds of these pools., circles cut into the ground at equal distances. Dotting the landscape with shiny watering holes. I heard a different kind of music, cheerful but scary, Kingdom melodies. The sounds of my childhood. I looked around confused, something from the center of the pool caught my eye, I moved out to it. Lying in the water, flat on his back and in good christian attire was Brother Koza. This Man will mean nothing to most readers. He was the member of the "Anointed Class" of Jehovah's Witnesses. One of the 144,000 that by that religion's count are the number of people who will be "worthy" of Heaven. He was a friend, and he "went to heaven" when I was young, before my Baptism of Stains began. I reached in and touched the tip of his well shined shoe, his body was rigid, tapping his toe made it begin move in circles the water. I tried to scream. But nothing came out. Like a silent film, no sound, just body language.
I fell backwards into the water and crawled out onto the grass again. This was the first time I looked down at myself. That white sundress I love so much but am afraid to wear, Nothing spectacular, really. Save for the fact my dress was unsullied and dry. My feet were clean and it was like I had never stepped into that pool. I stood eyes fixed on the body still doing circles in the center of a circle pond. The water still moving and rippling from my presence in it. Little circles flowing across the surface of the water...
Circles
I looked more closely at the many pools around me, still the clouds moved and I was unable to resist following them. This time I did so looking around me. Avoiding stepping in the pools again. I was ready for the next one, or so I thought. I tried to see the bottom of it before I got to the edge, bright sky reflected so brightly on the surface it was futile. I stepped to the edge and felt my breath catch. Grandma Covert, Strongest woman I have ever known. Creative and a loyal wife. She was as I remember her at her viewing. Her salt and pepper hair wavy and tied back. I did not touch her, I did when in the casket. I didn't want that experience again. I backed out of the pool and balled up my fists.
"Where am I?" no sound, I felt my voice in my chest, the vibrations in my ears. But no sound.
Moving faster now I went to each pool on what now appeared to be a path. large miss matched stones forming a one I either had not seen before or had just appeared to what? Help? Each pool I went to held another memory of someone I lost in my life. I saw my grandfather, grandmother, Marge Parker, a woman I knew who died of bone cancer after years of suffering.
The second to last pool sent me to my knees. This pool was much smaller than the rest. Floating in the center was something I only recognized because of how long I had looked at it at the time in my life when I suffered this loss. It was simply tissue, the child I lost in the bathroom of a hospital because they thought my pregnancy was all in my head. It wasn't until shortly after I was sitting in the rest room for the er waiting room holding this tissue, that they got the information on my pregnancy from the clinic and did another test to indeed see I was pregnant. Emphasis on was.
I fell on my knees at the edge of the pool and cried silently. A familiar scent rolled past my nose, comforting, awakening, motivating. I crawled where the smell had wafted my way from. I approached the edge of another pool and looked inside. I braced myself still panting and trembling from the last one. The light from the sky still cast a opaque image of itself on the surface. There were already ripples in this water. Something was moving inside, I got to my feet and saw only a bit of what was sticking out of the image of the sky, the object more blue than even the velvety color of the sky on the water. Then I recognized the smell. HisRoyalRascalness, His hair, blue/grey I swallowed hard and moved into the water. He floated there in the fetal position, face grey eyes devoid of any spark, no life, but he struggled as if wearing an invisible straight jacket. Music in my head changed, driving and harsh. I felt a sinking as if my body was being pushed into the ground. I fell on my knees and turned him over to get his face free of the water. He gasped for air and went limp in my arms.
I screamed, this one very audible, this one, piercing the patronizingly peaceful air of my surroundings. All of my little circle pools rippled as each of my losses stood and pointed at me.
"Inevitable is not absolute." They said in unison. "Make the steps"
They all laid back down in their pool's and the surface in each pool went right back to glassy calm. at this point I realized he was no longer in my arms. But perched at the side of the pool. Grinning at me one knee in the grass an arm resting on the other. His clothes unsullied and dry.
"It will be alright Emmy Lou Marie" he said picking at grass between his fingers. "Peace and calm always right?"
Always you rascal. Always.
"Well get on with it then." he said and before my eyes, his skin went grey, his eyes rolled back into his head and he crumpled to the ground. At this moment I was drawn under the water and held there , my nose inches from the surface so close to air needed to survive. I felt my body rock and then darkness.
I sat up in my bed wide awake. I took deep breaths and shook for a moment. Amazed at how vivid it was. How it effected me. I got up to use the bathroom, and when I came back my lights were on someone in my bed. His shoes beside my night stand, Surprise visit! I said out loud and jumped in bed, throwing the blankets back expecting to see him grinning up at me cheekily because of his antics. Instead he was in the fetal position, grey no movement. But this time wet, as if he had been soaking in a pond. I woke and looked at the clock.
It's three am... are you OK?
wow...just wow.
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