The sky was fire, that’s what I really remember.
There’s always more to see beyond the City.
The world extends and expands the further out you go and it always always will. I walked in no particular direction, desiring only to be free of the hustle the lights the indignation of yet another night trapped within its walls. This time, there was no long winding drive past endless houses and down winding streets. This time, there were no canopies of trees and city walls like sheer cliffs. No banners, no neon lights no endless murals stretching upwards as far as my eyes can see-
Here there lay only fallow fields, the tail ends of barbed wire fences, and the gravel road stretching to the horizon.
The sun had set and been down for what could have been minutes, or could have been hours. I could not see far enough to know whether or not the bridge was still there. I remember, as a child, the water rising and flooding its banks- I remember being sorely tempted to touch that raging flow. Instead, I stayed in the middle of the bridge and let the Clan do as it would. As an adult, looking back, I know what a dangerous thing this was- he should never have driven our car out into the middle of the bridge, no matter how confident he had been of its construction. {As for the other, I want to return... to see it again with my own eyes and know whether it and its house are as unstable as I seem to remember.}
As I walked on through the dark away from the Estate, into the gathering night and away from any lingering city lights, I looked up.
The night was on fire, this much I do remember, utterly. In a cloudless sky, the stars seemed dead, but I could see every spinning galaxy, every heavenly body, every wandering planet. They filled the sky with lights and flashing, and.... there on the horizon, I saw it.
The whirlwind approaching, flashing silver and green in the depths of it, spinning and devolving like something made of smoke. It swept along earth and sky, while planets and stars cavorted overhead and the world spun on, out of any’s control but perhaps some absent Deity-
And I stood in the middle of the gravel-lined dirt track, and I watched the Dance.
I scribbled notes the moment I stepped from the Dream. I woke and wrote them. I stepped beyond and into the next without a single one. I woke and immediately began to write. I woke and stretched and checked my phone and when the memories came rushing in, I set about recounting as much as I could recall...
The world shifted beneath me, a great heaving shuddering breath. Not long now. The words echoed and I reached for heaven even as I fell to my knees. A night sky, black as velvet and blue as the darkest ocean depths, strewn with silver and spinning flashing shining gems- Every one as stately as a courtier and as fretful as a child in its place. Still I looked upwards.
The sky moved, it danced, it wavered as I stared, unwilling to break a moment of contact with that shifting scene. Words came unbidden. Whispered, silent on my tongue, soul-wrenching screams I hurled heavenward-
The Cave beckons, the Whales sing, the Wood grows around me and here I stand, moment after moment hour after hour beholding that which has and always should remain hidden. The turning of the wheel is not for me to witness, and yet here I stand, staring-
I wanted to gauge my eyes from my face, I wanted to weep tears of blood, I needed- I needed. But I did not wake with pain and I did not find any relief with the Waking. My eyes are sore, my body heavy, nothing comes easily today... I am weighted where last night every bond and anchor seems stripped from me.
But know this, Twin Soul of mine, I Loved-
A whisper, a shout, a scream, a defiant warcry flung like a javelin towards any who doubt.
I do not know how long I stood or knelt or sat there in the dirt with the heavens dancing above me. I could not map their movements or draw them into something manageable for you- But they are there. Spinning endlessly in a dance I will never understand again. But for one moment, an hour... a lifetime spent gazing upwards into the blackest night, or down into the furthest reaches of space.... I was held tight by gravity and I Witnessed something.
This much it is given to me to share, this much is it offered that I must speak and begin to understand. The Other, is for me.