S.O.S.

I’ve always had a special place in my heart for a particular song by The Police, entitled Message In a Bottle, and recently downloaded a remix of this song. Why? I’m still asking myself why, especially since just the other day, every single time I sat at my computer, working on bits and pieces of this and that, this one song played….over, and over, and over. I listened to no other music that day. For whatever reason it was my white noise and allowed me to do what I do in peace. 

An idea began to brew in my head that day, one which grew until it had to be slung out onto the screen, quickly. What if you wished and dreamed and despaired in such a powerful way that your message out into the Universe was routed through the proper channels, received, processed, and ultimately fulfilled?

What if, indeed…

The drumbeat inside his head would not stop.

It kept up a steady annoying pace until he wished it to be over, heart exploding

all over the walls of the sparsely furnished room,

his doom complete.

 

 

But it would not happen.

Not defeat. Not yet. Not ever.

 

 

He sank down into the chair in the corner, his head in his hands,

eyes closed, despair lurking behind the curtains,

peeking around with soundless laughter

and after he had breathed out every pain-laden fear

 

 

his eyes began to clear

a little, and the drumbeat subsided.

Something within the darkest, most fertile regions of his soul

cried out,

 

 

a soundless shout,

demanding.

 

 

Tendrils of light and darkness spread,

commanding the air around him and snaking out into the room

where he sat, trembling…

shaking and unaware that he was calling out into the Universe.

 

 

Further away, the tendrils spread

in rich hues of burnt sienna and red

 

 

 

…and the Universe replied; the door to the darkened room

locking of its own accord.

He could ill afford to ignore the change in the air

as little by little she began to take shape before him.

 

 

She was silent, and calm, and real, and not.

Cool to the touch, a balm to the surface of his reality.

 

 

He looked up into her eyes, one source of heat lingering there.

Her hand reached out, stroking his hair, whispering something he couldn’t quite hear.

When he stood, she searched his eyes with her own, looking past the fear

and located the pain, nestled comfortably around every tangled knot in his soul.

 

 

Such a long way to travel, to pluck through and

unravel the knots, releasing the pain,

 

 

and it blazed, white hot, as she pulled it away.

Insane and unbearable, his disbelief subsided —

the terrible dread locked into his shoulders released its grip

and the relief rocked his reality off-kilter, a little bit…

 

 

She pulled him close, dispensed with the pain, again and again

until the room began to spin and he forgot anything else existed.

 

 

Midnight crept in through the moonless window

and still the healing was not complete,

Her gentle persistence would not allow for defeat

and at the end of the night, when dawn threatened to spill light into the world,

 

 

she lay next to him, shaking and unaware that the Universe had

created her for a reason, only knowing with elation that she

had freed him from the desperation of that damned drumbeat in the center of his head,

the drumbeat that drove him in sadness

 

 

to a place next door to the highway of madness, and he was past it,

and he pulled her close, lost in sleep and reverie, resting and free.

 

 

.

.

.

.