Gone [Halloween2015]

She sat staring into the darkness of the holy water she had siphoned from the earth and had kissed by the moon. The darkness. The past. Always the past. Where was the present? The future? So many questions left unanswered. So much emptiness inside. Where was the light? Where did it go? Where was it?

Hearing the ragged whisper echoing off the hollow walls, in seeming response to her unspoken questions, she glanced up from her black scrying bowl, and softly asked the air, "Is it? Is it really?"

The reply came back slowly, in a small, measured gasps, "Yes. It's. Gone."

"Gone from...everywhere? Or just here? Really gone?"

Nothing back but more silence. The candlelight still flickering. The water still dark. Decades of silence. Decades since it left. And for many of those millions of minutes she had searched relentlessly, lived an odyssey of futility or loneliness and hopelessnes and widening loss.

Journies at dawnbreak and in twilight, in the day and in the night, to the sun and to the the stars and to the waters and to the mountains and then to hell and back, having faith, losing faith, regaining faith and losing it again again proved useless and hard. Harder some days than living should ever be, this never-ending quest to fill a deeper chasm than many would ever know.

"Don't do this to yourself."

"I have to. I miss it. I miss the me I was with it. I miss time, life, joy. And I've been...close."

"But never close enough?"

"Right. Never close enough."

Again more silence. Yes she had gotten close. At times, a gathering wind, a rift, a wall of shimmer, a glimpse of a face brought some hope.. At others, a laugh, someone saying her name in the deepest of voices, the smell of lilies of the valley on that wind gave her courage. But these things...well they were merely memories. Not hope. Not dreams. Just reminders of thngs almost forgotten. Ghosts almost. Well a ghost of herself. A living ghost. Was she really even living?

To many, she appeared crazy. But she wasn't. There were things she just knew even though she couldn't explain how. She didn't speak much, to explain, mainly because there really was no way to. In the beginning, she used to try, but when it became increasinly obvious that no one understood, and how could they unless they already knew, she stopped. And so most of those who knew never heard her. And those she ran into on occasion could only reinforce the and sympathize or empathize or listen without that judgement that permeated this corporeal world.

"Souls move on."

"Yes they do."

"I know."

The thing they never tell you, the thing she really always knew, is that if the soul you have given your soul to moves on, yours goes too. It's not a soul eater or the darkness in you that takes it. You gave it. All you can do, from that point on is try to reconnect or reclaim as best you can, where and when you can, as small as those odds may be and as much seeking as it might take.

She blew the candle and poured the water from bowl over her face to wash away her tears on yet another All Hallows Eve, she also knew she'd never stop trying or looking for that magic.

"It's not gone."

Very lovely, Luc. But if you will excuse me, I think I will go jump off the bridge now.

Just kidding!

It's not gone.

a reply to: ~Lucidity

Wow, you are a very talented writer. The pain and angst comes through clearly. That was beautiful, Lucidity, I really enjoyed that (in a bridge-jumping sort of way).


B x

a reply to: ladyinwaiting

a reply to: beansidhe

Thank you, both very much. Guess I should have saved this one for the bridge-jumping contest and not for Halloween. Eeek.

So many cool Halloween stories so far. Looking foward to reading more.