Shadow and Cloud

Shadow and Cloud

She saw them kiss.

She was shocked (an understatement). Surprise, anger, hurt and other emotions never felt by any other gushed at her as a great sea of sensations and left her stunned and white. But it was pure pain inside. She was like a delicate vase that was cracking in a slow, fine spiderweb fashion from intense pressure inside. She was suddenly dispossessed, like a nameless stranger who saw nothing but that moment. The Kiss. So vivid and alive. Time stopped. Like a never-ending muggle video of the same scene, it played in her head. Again and again. Everything else seemed to vanish. She felt her life knew its meaning in that moment of kiss only to crash down into meaninglessness.

She could not hold on any longer, she ran away and hide. From all of it. From herself.

They took it as a typical surprise like theirs. Or they were just too stunned to care.

She was shaking all over as she ran and yield every part of her body to any movement like a volcano to explode any second quaking just to bid time. Her eyes prickled and burned with threatening tears, mind stormed into a confusion nothing clear or discernible but the deluge of pain within her breaking her killing her and its shadowy haze form invading her cold empty imagination.

A tear dared to drop fast, unsure, a single needle, sharp, unscathed. Then taking it as if a cue, innumerable incessant needles of tears raced out of her eyes down to her cheeks like a brook running for life, frantic, crazy, scared, pained but somehow victorious.

Fire and ice crept into her veins of Passion as it was crystallized and blazed exhausting her energy as she retaliated with severe sobs clinging desperately for life while surrendering to the reality of loss.

She had nothing to say anymore... What was there to be said, who was there to hear. Hopeless anguish and emptiness left her as nothing but a cold ball of pain. Pure. Neat. A cry echoed out of her lips, the only answer to Pain she was capable. An unheeded retaliation against defeat. Useless... Hopeless...

There was nothing to be done.

God, she had seen this many times in movies, read in books but they all came to her the same--a stranger, evoking the same unfeeling sympathy and textbook rationalization. Until now. She felt sorry for her past stoicism and felt the unadulterated truth of natural Aloneness in the experience of Pain.

She had good intentions. Love always had. But it did not care either. It caused things unintended. Like accidents, bad luck or silly joke of life. Love is smug; narcissistic to care about things like Reality, consequences or future. It does not recognize Justice. It does not care about people. It is like a child who does not care for her Mother holding her precious like a life-giving gift. It is bound to leave. She felt stupid for depending on something like love for something she could do on her own.

Then she suddenly felt rage. Red with Rage. Pain is a breeding ground for Hate¹. It was. She was too overwhelmed with the pain to feel the genesis of Hatred within her until it was grown and strong enough to take over her. She suddenly hated them. Them.

She felt cheated. Deprived of something she deserved. She was used to dedication, to passion, to achievement. She always painstakingly worked for everything she aimed for. She had Faith. She loved Truly and Deeply. Without condition. It was all futile.

Like polishing firewood.²

She hated herself.

She felt something Pure that mere reasons could not understand. No, not only hatred or sorrow or grief. She could not name it. For the first time, she was Stupid. For the first time, she gave the grace of complete liberty to herself. It was not bliss. It was entrapment.

Funny joke life was.

Then she was too weary. She finally fell to the final depth of loneliness. He was happy. She was not. The rational self screamed that she should be happy for him. That she had to accept reality. That she had to move on. That life was too short for sentimental shit. But it all felt like a distant stranger now. Like an impersonal self-help book advice. Like her old self. She was never going to be the same. Drawing on her residual strength, she looked forward and saw Shadow. She Stopped.

A sacred place was carved deep within her. Like god. A place she would never forget. A place that she looked with reverence and defiance every time. Like an unheeded prayer. Cold and consecrated. Like a faint source of cold strength.

%%%

I saw everything as I crept silently. I felt I was seeing a stranger. She was not the assertive and brilliant person I always knew. She shrunk in a dusty corner of a public toilet stinking from urine and waste, subdued from pain and weary. Like a child cowered and lost. I felt elevated. Out of place. Like a cloud hovering far above. But I watched over her feeling protective and giving distant sympathy. Like cloud is to earth. I realized that Harry always had the true love he was looking for.

"Dracoh..."

Oh. I was wrong. I was a little shocked. But that hardly mattered. Flashes of images from memory rushed back... Being close with her, I saw of course. I just did not know.

I felt guilty. I felt relieved. I was almost to fall in the same ground if it were not for the new love I found. Have you ever looked at one thing and suddenly felt you saw the world? The Stillness of the moment taught me everything about Love. Love is indeed a faceless thing, void of reasons and appearances. Love is Higher Art, hard to truly appreciate and attain, easy to fake, easy to scorn and mock. I thought about my new love... I knew I was beholding a fragile flame--eerie and enticing...

Beautiful.

I felt afraid.

%%%

Time passed. Nightshade crept in every surface and space as it conquered the horizon. Every wall, every ground, every corner, every breath embraced the darkness as if an accepted fate. The air felt heavy and humid, silent, filled with secrets. The labored breathing and palpitated heartbeats that synchronized into a low monotonous music were the only sounds that broke its fragility, in such a tiny way. The shadow that stilled behind the wall in the corner coalesced with the hovering blackness of the night, subdued by the clutch of her surrender.

Cloud above moved on unseen in Darkness.

" the

Rose

Petals

Fell

to

the

ground

Then the rain Poured"³

...