In Xanadu

In Xanadu

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:

from Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Pain.

The pain was ever present. Pain permeated, controlled and devoured every cell in his body and brain. It deadened his senses because all he could feel, all he could know, was pain. He did not know what brought him to this state. Hell, he barely knew who he was. Pain was all he felt, all he knew, all he was.

Days were not separated from nights. Minutes were hours and hours were lifetimes. The pain was such that it corrupted a man's sense of time. What could he know, if he could not know the time? If he did not know when he was, how could he know what or where he was? It was the first step - the loss of time - the loss of his place in time, in the world.

He could hear voices, but they were oddly muddled and muted . He tried speaking to them, calling out to them, but found he couldn't. His body refused to obey his commands. They were simple commands. Open eyes. Move arms. Speak. It took him eons to formulate them, but his body would not comply, for it could only feel the pain. There was something pressing at the back of his mind that overwhelmed these simple commands. Something that had always been present. He could not form words, but his mind could formulate images and he could feel concepts. They resolutely filtered in against his better judgment.

In Xanadu . . .

Reality slowly became a footnote in his life. He tried to hold onto memories, but they were vague and broken - foggy remembrances of just battles, blinding flashes of light and curses in a language he knew but could not remember all floated and flashed disconnectedly in his mind.

He had no real concept of himself, but he did see himself in reds, he saw himself with other reds. He often saw a woman and had an odd sense of possessiveness about her, but he didn't know her name and didn't know what she was to him or what he was to her.

"Bill, Bill can you hear me?"

If he could have felt frustration, he would have, but all he knew was haze and mist and dreams. The pain slipped away from him, or at least, the knowledge of pain slipped away from him.

Imperceptibly, lines slowly blurred and slipped.

The world creaked as it gently shifted.

Down.

Down.

No.

Up.

Up and out.

His dreams crept into his waking consciousness, or what he thought was his state of awareness - it was difficult to tell these hours, these days, these lifetimes. As he let his dreams rule, the pain dissipated, almost to the point of extinction.

In Xanadu . . .

He sometimes reached out his hands to grasp at things he knew to be impossible. Love could not be held in his hand, and yet he did and forgot that it was impossible. The Love he held was always pulsing, always burning and he always rose to meet it. And it was always her.

He often reached for her, to bring her to him, to bring her to his newly discovered paradise, only to find a pale and drawn face flickering in her stead. A face that wanted to threaten all he had made, all he now understood, a face that lived in the world of pain. So he would retreat. He retreated into his world so that he might make it to his satisfaction, which would invariably be made to her satisfaction.

"Please come home to me."

In Xanadu . . .

Realities splintered as they crashed into each other and formed new worlds from the fragmented pieces. There was a world of witches and wizards, good and evil, epic battles and crushing defeats, friends and lovers, which blended perfectly with yet another world of deep delight and holy dread, pleasure domes and demon-lovers, flashing eyes and sunless seas.

It was Beautiful. It was Perfect. It was Paradise.

And he drank the sweetness of it, guzzled it, safe in the knowledge that it was eternal.

"I-I don't want to lose you, please, baby please, come back to me."

In Xanadu . . .

Never had he felt so free, so unencumbered. He slid precariously, yet confidently through the dimensions of reality. He saw things no one had ever seen before because he was aware as no one had ever been aware before. He saw the breath of gods and felt the cries of lovers, he tasted the castles in the sky and he was the enchanted brutality of nature, life and the world.

She would see the meaning, she would see the beauty in the pain and destruction in his world, and she would rejoice in the pleasure and the knowledge and the being that was so essential to his world. Feeling was an inadequate concept for what she would experience. She would know eternity as he did. She would see to the beginning and the ending of time. She would be the world, just as he was the world.

She would understand. She always had. She would surrender as he had and they would find perfection together. She would see that they were one. One with each other and one with everything. She would follow him into his dreams and never leave him. But she was always annoyingly out of reach. If there was one thing that dissatisfied him in this nearly pain-free place, it was her distance. He could never quite find her, but she was always there, cloaked in mystery and darkness.

"Follow me home, baby."

At great length, he felt her lower herself unto him, but he could not see her. Invisible hands roamed over his body and slid beneath his skin, caressing him from the inside. They pulled all he had ever been and all he could ever hope to be out, out and up. He arched against the invasion, wanting to keep it all inside, needing to prolong the pleasure within the exquisite pain, needing to stay in this perfect world, this paradise. The pressure pounded against him, against his entire body and the atmosphere bore down on him. He was sure it would crush him into nothing, but at the same time he was sure he would explode into everything. It left him voiceless and yearning. He tried to cry out but could not.

And then he heard her voice. Her soft, melodic whispering, singing him a song of faith and love. . . and home. She gently separated the pleasure from the pain and the release from the pressure. She was telling him that she was fine, their family was fine, he would be fine and they would survive.

"Come to me baby. Come for me."

So he let go.

And exploded upon the world.

His eyes were wrenched open by some unknown force. His body convulsed and his breaths came in great hacking gulps His body was wet, hot and tired - he could feel it. But he could no longer feel eternity.

"Oh-oh God. Oh Bill." A woman was sobbing.

The room gently spun around him. He tried to hold onto his world, tried to remember what he saw and what he knew there. He was desperate to hold onto that dream and what he was there. But it was fast disappearing, and in its place, he once again felt the pain. It wasn't quite as intense as he remembered.

A body, a real one, hovered over him. The vision of a woman was blurry and shifty. His eyes kept crossing, despite his best efforts, but he could see her where he could not before. He knew this woman. His need to hold onto his dream world lessened considerably. It was now but a fragmented broken dream.

"Hermi-" The half-word was pulled out of his body in a breathless rasp.

"Hush Bill," Hermione said through her tears. "You're okay now. Everything's going to be fine." She planted light kisses all over his face.

"Saw-" He heard other people moving in on him, but he could not see them. He could only see her.

"Bill, please. You need to save your strength. Oh God, I'm so glad you're okay. I was so afraid you were going to-" She choked on a sob.

"S-saw Xanadu." His head was spinning and his lungs were burning. He felt pain in his body that was different than the pain he remembered, a pain that swirled within him, but he had to tell her. She needed to know.

He closed his eyes against the strain of speaking. He felt wispy strands caress his face and felt a soft check press against his. Cool tears soaked into his skin.

"You," Bill paused to catch his breath, "you were there."

"You are my Paradise, Bill," Hermione whispered against his ear.

Bill understood perfectly. He would not leave her again.

In Xanadu . . .

With aching, weak arms, Bill embraced his wife and he could feel it - through the pain and the confusion, he could feel it.