Forever and Always

A roller coaster to no where plummeting into an abyss of total darkness, sucking in light like a cosmic black hole with a gravitational pull that does not allow escape. To be trapped in a vacuous neither world, surreal akin to a Dante vision of a warped reality, I felt myself being predicated to a life both real and unreal. Sounds stretched like amusement park taffy drifting in and out of audibility wracked at my brain like fingernails being drawn across a chalkboard. My body convulsing in painful torment as I fought to gain control over my senses that seemed disconnected. Flashes of light firing off like sparks emitted from an electrical short, pulses of light like the flashing of a high intensity strobe paralyzing me momentarily until the next blinding pulse fires off. My feet moving in a forward motion, but going nowhere as I struggle to run trying to escape this limbo of nothingness I have fallen into. It is an emptiness I could feel, a nothingness with substance that held to me not allowing for escape. I'm here, but I'm not here, destined to be tormented by my own fears. Is this what I had created for myself, a place of self torment, trapped by my on design in a world I had seen only myself in? The loneliness I felt beat in my chest is like a heart starved of oxygen losing it's fight to sustain life it supports. My lungs filled with fear like a man drowning, sinking deeper into the unfathomable depths of darkness. I wanted to scream out, but to what to who? I struggle to make an utterance, but I had no voice. This vacuous place I was in quietens even my audible senses. I could hear what I wanted to say, but to say it was impossible.

My head bows and I can feel a tear rolling down my cheek. Is it my tear? Am I feeling remorse for something I had done or is it self pity overtaking me in this moment of my darkest despair? I can feel the darkness gripping me tighter like a constrictor suffocating it's prey before it devours it. I feel life slowly being squeezed out of me and I want to succumb to it, to end this unbearable pain. Another tear rolls down my cheek and again I wonder if it is my tear? Who else would cry for me if not myself? The sparks and pulses of light start to diminish, the sounds of nothingness seem to fade, but the darkness intensifies as I feel myself struggling less in the ever tightening grip of this place. My head rolls from side to side as this constrictor wraps itself tighter and tighter. I have nothing left in me to fight, I feel as empty as this place I am in. I feel like giving in to this hoping the torment will stop and let me alone and end this suffering that tears at me, rendering me as empty as this world I am trapped in.

Slowly I feel myself slipping into this nothingness I am in, becoming a part of it as much as it was a part of me. My head jerks back as I feel the grip of the coils squeezing the last essence of life from me. No lights now, no sounds taunting me, just an impenetrable darkness that engulfs me completely, filling me as it seeps into my being. Coldness is my only sense now, a cold emptiness that takes up the vacuum where life once was. My eyes close as I feel myself at the doors of my fate and  as they close a piercing point of light penetrates the darkness in my mind. I feel life in it, hope that in this despair I find myself in there is salvation. Something that can deliver me from this hell of emptiness, something that can breathe warmth back into this cold that has filled me. I focus on that small point of light, not thinking of the coils that shackle me to this place. I feel a need in me to travel to that light, I feel it calling to me from far off like a whisper on the wind it comes to me.

“Mahal. Mahal come to me. You're home, please Mahal come to me now.” I feel another tear rolling down my cheek. I feel confused. Is this more torture I must endure? Words taunting me, teasing me into a false hope? “Mahal, please hear me. I am waiting for you as you wanted. Please my Mahal don't do this to me. Come back to me now.” I feel a warmth brush across my face and a softness resting against it. It is coming from the light, the words, the warmth I am feeling now. It brings a strength to me from within to fight this which is holding me in this place. I pull myself towards the light, struggling to free myself from this place of darkness. Slowly I see that point of light grow, broadening and as I feel it shed it's light on me I feel the warmth that it emits. My arms fight to pull themselves free from the coils wrapped tightly around them. I claw at the darkness to pull myself towards the light and and to the life I feel that emits it. “Mahal I'm waiting, please come back to me, please.” The light surrounds me now and I can feel the coils of the dark constrictor that had bound me to the darkness behind loosen their grip and writhe in spasms to pull itself away from the light. The darkness recedes back into the nothingness and gives way to the life the light brings. My fears subside and the loneliness that beat like a struggling heart calms and I can feel the warmth only love can give. The voice is clearer now, no longer a whisper, “Mahal I love you, I love you so very much. Please don't leave me, don't do this to me. I can't live without you.” I can feel a hand now gripping my hand. I can feel the warmth of a breath on my neck and the softness of a kiss. “Please Mahal.”

My eyes opened suddenly, slowly they focused on my surroundings. I was in a room flooded with light and and warmth. I could hear people talking, not in a language I could understand, but happy I could hear them. Then a voice I knew, a voice I hard heard many times over a long distance. “Shh. Dadee doesn't feel well, please keep your voice down Little One. You want dadee to get better?” “Yes momma I want.” came the reply. I turned my head towards the door as she entered, a tear that I knew was mine rolled down my face as her eyes looked at mine. She smiled and in a few steps was beside me, her face lowered to mine, her hand on my chest, “Hello Mahal.” “Hello Love.” I whispered. “How did I get here?” “Oh Mahal, you don't remember?” she asked puzzled. “No I don't remember Mahal.” “The plane Mahal from Manila you were on crashed landing. You were thrown from the plane when it hit the ground.” ”What are you talking about? What plane? What crash?” “Its been almost three weeks you have been in the hospital Mahal. You don't remember anything? Not even coming home?” She looked down at me waiting for me to answer her. I could see the worry in her eyes now. “You're home now Mahal, that's all that's important. No need you remember that time anyway. I just want you better and in good health. The children want you home.” Yes Mahal I know.” She smiled looking down at me, “I bring a Little Monkey with me Mahal, your Little Monkey.” I looked past her and across the room sitting in a chair swinging her feet that couldn't touch the ground watching Dora the Explorer sat my Little Princess. “Little One are you going to hug my neck and give me a kiss?” I asked her. She looked over at me and smiled, “You want dadee?” “Of course I want silly Little Monkey.” “Can I have fried chicken and a donut and a chocolate and a coke?” “Of course you can.” I replied smiling. “Will I hurt your bones?” I looked down at myself, both legs in casts to my waist, my right arm and shoulder in a cast, my head wrapped and bandaged, multiple I. V.s inserted in my left arm and both hands and a back brace. She walked slowly over to me and climbed up on the rails of the hospital bed and wrapped her arms around my neck then kissed my cheek. “I love you dadee.” “I love you too Little One.”

“Mahal you want to rest now?” “No I don't want. I've had enough rest.” “You're weak Mahal, you need to heal. You have many injuries. We will let you rest now.” she reasoned holding my hand. “No Mahal I don't want you to leave, I want you here. It was you that gave me the will to want to see another day. I was in a bad place Mahal and I am afraid if I close my eyes I will go back to it.” “Mahal you're home now and the only place you are going is to #2 Republic St. Little One and I will stay here with you if you want Mahal, you won't be alone.” “No Mahal, I won't be alone ever again.”

She pulled a chair next to the bed and sat next to me and held my hand. “Are you happy now Mahal you're home?” Looking into her eyes I smiled, “I couldn't be happier if it were our wedding day. Mahal I had so many bad dreams, I felt like I was leaving this world, leaving you behind. I was in a very dark place and I felt like I would never escape, like it was holding me there, not letting me escape it's hold on me. I kept feeling tears on my cheeks and whispers floating all around me. I was so afraid and alone their Mahal.” “Those were my tears Mahal, I haven't left you since Ate called me and saw on the news about the plane crash. She called the airlines and gave them your name, they said you had been transported to the hospital. I fetched Little One from school and came fast to you Mahal. Ate take care of Little One at night, but I stayed here with you. I haven't left you. I would hold you Mahal and I cried so much afraid I would lose you. I whisper in your ear not to leave me, to come back to me. I too was afraid Mahal. The doctor even tell me to prepare myself, that you may not live. You were in a coma all these weeks.” “Yes, but I'm here now Mahal and I didn't die. As I said before as you are my destiny, I am your destiny. We were meant to be together and together we will be Mahal, forever and always.” She smiled, tears rolling down her cheeks, “Yes Mahal, always and forever.”

Later...

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