2 REBIRTHED
The dreams always start simple at first: the cradling and rocking of warmth, the glow and pulse of liquid and its life giving heat.
I float and dream.
I dream of ages long past, of lives lived and of deaths suffered.
While I dream, I begin to feel the flow change. The slow steady pulse of heat, rhythm, and movement begins to flex and push. Then I’m moving, upward or downward I cannot tell which. I shift, testing.
The heat grows warmer with each deepening, quickening thrum. As it grows, I start to stir and waken. Behind my fluttering lids, I see the warm glow of the liquid orange and reds that are pushing me faster and faster towards my birth.
Finally, I open my eyes. The heat intensifies one hundredfold—and I glory in it. It is rushing now. No longer thrumming, it is gushing and pushing me to my destiny: towards whatever waits.
As it speeds faster and faster, I lift my head, stretching my neck and reaching…
With a burst of light and liquid orange heat, I am reborn into fire and agony and a glorious beauty…and back into shining life into the world above. Spreading my wings, at last, after one thousand years of death and dreams…Rebirthed now, alight and afire in the skies once again.
The Phoenix.
3 THE LAKE
There was a lake by my mother’s house. It was only a short walk away—about fifteen minutes if you walked fast. It was pretty during the day, but during the night a dark mist would hover over it. We would laugh and call it “Shadow Lake,” although that wasn’t its name.
My friends and I would play there as children until one summer one of them had fallen in and drowned. For a long time after, no one walked there. Signs were put up, barring it off, and walls were placed as barrier against anyone attempting to swim its waters.
I moved eventually. Went away to college, and came back successful or, at least, not a failure. I took to walking around the lake again, sitting above the stone edge of the wall which still stood, barring swimmers. The signs which once stood around it were gone, victims of bored children, rowdy and hyper with mischief.
I went there one day, enjoying the sun and fell asleep. It happened often enough that I usually brought some food to snack on before I left.
Today was different, somehow.
I went, taking my bag lunch and resting myself in the grass. I threw breadcrumbs to the few scraggly looking ducks wading in the water. Leaning back on my elbows, I let the sun warm my face. I fell asleep as I usually did, arms pillowing my brow.
I startled awake—to this day I’m not certain what woke me. There was barely any light to see by. Only the beams of the waning moon provided any illumination at all. I gathered up my things by touch, my heart pounding in my chest. I had never told anyone, but I had a terrible fear of the dark.
Feeling my way carefully, I edged along the bank, trying to find the path upward which would lead me away from the cold, misted waters behind me. I heard a rustle and turned, my heart pounding so hard I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. When I looked, I saw nothing.
I turned back again, my hands trembling, and stumbled a little on the ground. There was another noise. This time when I turned, I saw what it was.
The surface of the water was churning, mist leeching into the disturbance, and bubbles frothing upward. I could barely feel myself swallow as I stared. Up from the churning waters came the eerie sound of whistles, like the wind through trees on a moonless night. My hands went clammy and I stumbled backwards, but not quickly enough. A figure lifted from the parted ripples of the lake and stepped towards me, balanced on the waters as though walking on solid ground.
I reached behind me, my breath coming in shallow gasps and fell back hard on the ground. The figure continued to walk forward, until it overtook me as I scrambled backwards. Icy wet mist flowed over my skin and into my mouth and nostrils as I sucked in my breath, gasping. I had the sense of sadness, and hunger, and a terrible want before I was overcome. Then a voice whispered from inside me as though speaking right into my ear.
“Do not be afraid,” it said.
I blacked out.
When I awoke, it was morning and I was in my bed. I had no idea how I’d gotten there or what happened, but I ached in every part of my body. I got out of bed and took a shower, scrubbing myself until my skin was raw, wishing I could remember what occurred the night before. I’d had a dream…but no, it was too strange to be believed.
I went about my day, but many times my coworkers would give me looks. I never knew what the looks meant, but I was having a hard time concentrating. I would find myself nodding off at my desk at work. I would wake some thirty minutes later having done nothing productive…and, once again, aching in parts which should not be hurting. Not like that—not at work.
As soon as I went home, I showered again, feeling more and more afraid. Why was I feeling like this all the time? Was I sick? I went to bed hoping rest would help ease whatever was going on with me.
When I woke the next morning, it was worse. My head was killing me, I hurt all over, and my body was sweaty as though I had run a thousand miles. Something was wrong. This time I was certain, but I couldn’t understand what. I forced myself to think hard—this all started the day I had gone to the lake.
I had been certain I’d dreamed what happened there—but maybe it hadn’t been a dream at all. I gritted my teeth and went about my day. As soon as I left from work, I headed towards the lake. The sun was barely a sliver in the sky, and the mist would cover the lake soon.
By the time I walked to its edge, the sky was dark. The mist covered the lake, floating and moving as though it were a live thing. As soon as I came to the edge, the waters began churning as they had that night days before.
My heart started pounding, but I stood rigid, waiting. The figure rose out of the waters and came towards me. This time it stopped in front of me and I gasped. It was a beautiful woman. I looked into her eyes and felt her touch my skin with icy fingers.
“I have waited for you a long time, Thomas,” she said.
I stared at her and swallowed. “How do you know my name?”
She laughed, and her laugh was the sound of soft whistling on a dark night. “I know your name because you are mine. Don’t you remember? We came here once.”
As she finished speaking, I did. “Mara,” I whispered and she smiled. I could see her face now, the child she had been in the face of the woman she might have become.
Her voice was gentle as she spoke. “It’s time to pay now, Thomas.”
I nodded my head dumbly. It had been my fault she’d drowned all those years ago. It hadn’t been malicious, but I had tripped her in the water, and in my fear had not told anyone she wasn’t coming up for air.
She wrapped her cold, wet arms around my neck and kissed me, drawing me backwards. She was all around me and through me and her taste was like moonlit waters on a misty night.
And I went with her, down into the mist, where I could be with her forever.
4 MOURNING
I held on a long time. There wasn’t much more to be done: I had called them all and they had come. They trickled in one by one, to settle around me, their faces caricatures of grief. I knew better though. I had not risen to where I was because of a lack of ability to read people.
It didn’t matter at this point. Oh, it hurt—no mistaking that—it did hurt. That it should, surprised me. I had never cared before. I had been too busy, too rushed, and too full of the knowledge of my own power to pay attention to what is now my greatest regret.
Bitter and ironic that.
Not even my wife would mourn me. Not truly. Oh, she was here, looking beautiful and grief-ridden just as she should. Sitting there surrounded by my children and looking as though she could be one of them. But, once again, I knew. There was a gleam in her eye. I don’t blame her though. I knew well enough what I wanted when I got her—and what she wanted when she caught me.
Still… it hurts. And it’s funny, now
that I am in a place money cannot buy me out of, just how bitter the realization is.
I wish I had done differently. I wish I had loved more. I wish I had placed more value on my children’s lives. They are sitting there, watching me…waiting, just waiting for me to die.
The worst part of it all is that there is no rage. No anger that they do not regret my coming demise. How can there be? I know exactly how they feel. I felt it for my own father. And I had promised myself I would not be like him.
It is bitter to realize that the greatest promise I ever made to myself was broken over the lesser wishes for wealth.
And now, it is too late: I am fading…and I know there is no light at the end of the tunnel for me.
5 WRAITH (