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Chapter 6

Despair and Faith

Last night I met T, the closest and dearest friend I've ever had. We were inseparable when we were little but we lost contact many years ago. Our meeting took place in a world below this one, a bleak, daunting, dark place where every colour shifted in different shades of dismal grey. The air was filled with a strange threatening sound, like sound-waves in slightly altered but all very high notes, constantly echoing each other and leaving visible traces of deep-grey shady lines behind, making the whole world seem like it was in a constant state of a gloomy undulate movement. No matter how much I tried to convince myself it wasn't that bad, that surely it was a happy and colourful place if only I could change my mind about it, I couldn't rid myself of the uneasy feeling this world imposed upon me. Now I walked this landscape of shadows, heading for home.
          The first thing I saw when I opened the door to the house I lived in, was T. I hadn't expected to ever meet her again, not ever, because, I thought she was dead. But there she was, still just a little girl, a baby really! To see her again simply stunned me, I was amazed, and overwhelmed with pure rapture. I could barely believe that what I saw was true. I didn't say anything, I just went to her, slowly, and I lifted her up and I held her. I simply held her, close to me. To sense her presence, to feel the warmth of her being near me again, filled my soul with a joy no words could ever express. It was like reuniting with a peace I hadn't felt for so long I'd forgotten it was even possible to feel it.
          Then, for the briefest of moments, I had to leave her, to run some errands or something, I knew it was for the shortest while so I didn't think much about it when I left: I knew, in my heart, I was coming back for her really soon. But when I returned, she was gone. I darted back out again in panic, I had to find her, she had to be there, somewhere.
          An ever stronger desperation rose inside of me as I couldn't find her anywhere. I searched all over, I called out her name, louder and louder, and the fear in my voice made it sound strange and unfamiliar – almost like it was someone else I heard calling for her. I sensed somewhere, deep inside, that I was running late, that maybe it was already too late, but I didn't want to recognize that feeling so I kept searching, more and more desperate, kept hoping and praying that I would find her, and I thought that when I did I would never ever let her go again. After what seemed like an eternity I did find her, only ... she was dead.
          As I looked at her dead little body I knew it was a man in the house I lived in who had killed her. Realizing this created an absolute fury within me. I darted back into the house, I knew I was going to find him there, and so I did. He was sitting in the living room, in one of the armchairs close to the hearth. In uncontrollable rage I cried out to him: "What have you done? Have you lost your mind? You have killed her – you have murdered her! You're a murderer, you son of the devil!"
          As I yelled this I felt afraid he was going to meet my rage with an even more intense fury. But although this frightened me in such an acute way it made my body quiver – as it always did when I confronted him in anger – this time I wasn't going to give in to that fear; I would not let it hinder me from saying what I had to say, what had to be expressed. To my surprise he didn't meet me in anger. Instead, feelings of guilt, shame, and regret were reflected in his voice when he said, in a tone almost avoidant: "I had to do it, can't you see? I had to." And I answered: "But why? She was just a little child. She was no threat to anyone, she hadn't done anything!". And the man knew I was right in this, but he couldn't admit to it, so he looked away, unable to meet my eyes, trying to hide the remorse and shame that was written all over his face.
          He turned his head, facing the wall, and he repeated, in a quiet, thoughtful voice: "I had to". Like was he saying it as much to himself, wondering – asking – himself why he had thought that killing her was the right thing to do. I saw this, I felt his regret and I understood that he was truly sorry for what he'd done, but I just couldn't meet him in that and forgive him. Not now, I was too angry, too hurt, and so totally devastated T was dead I couldn't even stay in the same room as him, so I ran out, not knowing where to go. Because there was no place to go, no place on this Earth could free me from the pain I felt; it was taking over my mind, it was suffocating my soul, it killed my heart, and it intoxicated the whole world. That pain, that awful, all-consuming pain. The pain of losing her.
          And here the dream changed. Suddenly I was at a hospital, though still in this shady dark-grey world below were the first part of my dream had taken place. I went to a room where a little Asian girl with long, shiny black hair sat starry-eyed in one of the hospital beds. She was surrounded by nurses, she was laughing and talking, telling them all kinds of funny little stories. It was plain to anyone watching them the nurses just loved her. They laughed with her, smiled at her, and embraced everything about her with a deeply felt kindness, compassion and care.
           I looked at them and I knew they just couldn't help loving that little girl because she was enthralling, she was a ray of God Himself. It was as if just being in her presence got you in touch with The Universal Love, the Love that knows no boundaries. I could see this as clearly as if the soul particles of that Love had become visible before my very eyes, in the same way as a ray of light makes visible tiny particles of dust floating slowly in the still air. It radiated from her heart: the closer to it you got, the stronger it shone.
          I stood there in the doorway, feeling uneasy about entering the room. Because I knew that the little Asian girl was T, a bit older than she'd been when she died, more in the age of a toddler now. Somehow she had managed to come back from the dead, to cross that bridge of shadows. But she looked so differently to me: Happy. Secure. Her bright eyes met the world head on, and it was like she could see straight into the core of your being, yet her gaze was filled with that softness you can feel when looking up at the stars a cloud-free, coal-black night, when the stars appear as were they glimmering diamonds embedded in an ocean of deep velvet dark. Filled with the Love that comes straight from God her spirit lit up the very air around her, like was she painting it in thriving colours borrowed from the glimmering treasures at the rainbows end.
          The strange thing was that, save for being Asian, T was all of that to begin with. She was all of that, and so much more. But in the dream it was like I had forgotten about it, in the dream I felt like she had changed. Because: I could no longer relate to her. My dearest friend and ally, my soul-mate who's slightest reflection had mirrored my own existence, who's soul were part of mine, the one person I trusted loved me for just being me, and whom I, therefore, loved more than life itself, she wasn't like me at all, not anymore. I could no longer relate to her. I felt like she had forever left me, all alone, in this world.
          I got jealous of all the nurses in her room, they shouldn't receive her love and affection. I should. No one else but me. I feel kinda childish now when I think of it, but in the dream it was like she betrayed me just by being nice and vivacious with anyone else but me.
          So I just stood there in the doorway, looking in, feeling overwhelmingly happy she was alive again, feeling lost and betrayed since I could no longer relate to her, feeling jealous of the nurses getting embraced by her huge bright unselfish love and affection. And I envied her. I envied the way she so naturally just took her place in the world and how there wasn't a doubt in her mind she had the right to do that, that she had the right to exist, that to her, it was a matter of course that she was loved and always would be. I knew that if I had asked her how she could think and feel this way about herself she would just have looked genuinely surprised at me, saying: "Why shouldn't I?".
          And as all of this was going through my mind and reflected back through a million mirrors in my heart, as I was standing there, silently, hesitatingly, in that doorway, looking in, afraid of entering the room, the dream dissolved and I woke up, feeling sad, abandoned and yet strangely filled with Faith. I looked absently at the clock, 6.30 am. I didn't care.