I invite you to listen to my reading of the final chapter of “The Colored Dreams” It ends with this Epilogue and I have recorded it over a beautiful moody music track that includes pieces from David Darling, Clint Mansell, and Angelo Badalamenti. I believe it will add another dimension to the story for you.
Just click on the link here:“Epilogue~The Intimate″ to enjoy the mp3 recording while you read along or just look at the pictures, as if I were in your room, reading the final pages of this tale to you out-loud.
I survived. I am the Intimate.
I survived. I am the Intimate.
I speak to you now because I must. I have never been one to obey all the rules. I break one of the biggest ones to come to you tonight.
Karima met her destiny the very night she rushed out to save me from mine. Is there ever an escape from what is written on a marker and pounded into our timelines?
I remember almost nothing of the accident except that it was not totally unexpected by either of us. The shattering was around me and through me and there was no where to go in the clouds of broken glass but return to her, and seek temporary refuge once again inside the one I loved...or so I thought.
There is no time outside of Time
There is no time outside of Time, but for those who are left conscious and awake, we have too much empty space and so we remember. At first I was confused, and as I became more aware of my situation, which was not like before, I began to doubt I would survive this. Karima it was shown to me quickly, had not survived, at least not what I would define as survival, for she went to sleep so deeply, I could wander through her empty halls, her empty cement boring retaining walls, and not hear a thought or even an echo of one. Where was the glow? Where was her light and shine and her brave foolish trusting? How did she slip away and where? I searched every crevasse and every door was locked and every window was black- curtained in lead and barred. I had lost her and she was mine… not to lose but to love and protect.
There was more room here than I could ever imagine.
There was more room there than I could ever imagine would be possible inside a human being. She who was so full of vibrancy and passion and artistry, but in an intersection with a truck on a stormy night, all of this had been converted into a drafty underground parking lot that echoed with my thoughts..but not hers. I cried in my own way, I lamented in waves that shook and beat upon the prison I was now locked into. In a way she was the orb I always felt present, yet she was more..and now she was less than even human. Gone, only closed walls, that I could not penetrate, and the sounds were muffled, as I could only hear what her damaged brain allowed now, in this deep trance of what they called a coma. I could move within her, but I could no longer move her, not even to make her eye twitch. This was like a burial alive and she was the secured empty coffin and I had stopped many long endless thoughts ago, and futile callings -out of her name, to try and wake and join her back together again with me. She was still alive on some level, as I was still alive, but our difference was that she did not realize she had been shut down and yet her organs cued by machinery, pumped the basic program of keeping her flesh alive. I have no flesh, but I have a soul, and I am aware and this horror began to feel endless.
Her rhythmic breathing was my clock
Her rhythmic breathing was my clock, her heartbeats my own funeral dirge, a constant pumping… whooshing that sometimes comforted me, and sometimes drove me to the thin edges of what is bearable. I thought,”Just let it stop. I wish it to stop,” because if it did, then so would I, and what ever awaited us, be it oblivion, or something more, had to be better than what we lived now; her numbed sleep in a death- state suspended hovering between what held us both and the possibilities of what might await us. I say might, because I did not have the answers about Life and Death that you perhaps think I did. Many times I felt fear, and weakness, and it was a penance, that not even a judge of my world could have been cruel enough to invent; so close to the one I loved, and yet locked out completely from her heart, from her dreams even..locked out and banished while hearing her breathe in and out,while I am sentenced to be trapped helplessly inside of her.
Then, after what seemed like an endless count of heartbeats
Then, after what seemed like an endless count of heartbeats, when I had the least hope that anything might change..something began to change. The walls became thinner, and I felt her stir, as the first vague images were projected out from her mind, from her deep caverns of abstract impulses, I saw something, that I knew was not coming from me and also I could hear more sounds of what was happening around us.
“Color therapy” someone said outside, and all of a sudden the curtain began to absorb itself, getting thinner and thinner until it was nothing more than a wispy cloud cover, that was in movement, blowing out of the way. I held myself totally still, and waited for some sign of her to materialize in the clarity.
The colors came in bright powerful bursts
The colors came in bright powerful bursts and the emptiness began to fill in with vague but certain detailed imagery When she began to see, I too began to see. All of these pictures were hers, and I had to move out of the way, to find my own place now, as it was not like before. “She awakes,” I suspended myself in shock and expectant disbelief.
The scenery her mind was painting tore my heart in two. It was that beautiful.
The scenery her mind was painting tore my heart in two. It was that beautiful, but she was far from being back into her conscious state. If anything she was dreaming up, perhaps a level higher, but still only dreaming. I whispered her name “mine” but she did not respond, just showed me scene after scene of tranquil, colorful impressionistic patterns, that soothed me, and for the first time, since the accident brought me a sense of peace and hope. I pondered the wisdom of telling her who I was. I feared she might retreat into insanity, if she thought I was trapped inside of her, yet I knew she was not awake enough for that to be even a danger at this point. So little of her had returned, and my power, so diminished, that I knew we could survive together like this, maybe indefinitely.
“We will try a new color each session,” one of them said, and I strained to hear and understand what it was they were trying to do for her. It was surprisingly Karima herself who let me know one day, when they bombarded her retinas with pure red and blue, for she spoke in thoughts that I could finally hear.
“My red room now lets in the blue… like a doorman suspiciously lets in strangers…”
It was her first thought that I could make out, and I was so startled, I almost answered her right there, but then, I held myself in check and waited to see what she was thinking. She felt and believed and talked about a presence, one who called her a “good girl” but how could she know that presence she was dreaming about was really me? I did take a chance, and slowly began to speak to her.. but not that day, and it appeared no one else but myself could hear her thoughts. I held back and was treated to her sensuality rising out in swirls of smoke from the roof of her prison .
“Ahh mine..this is you returning..Dream up and up sweet mine. Return again to me…to Life”
I waited, which was so hard for me until the next treatment, then, and it was spontaneous, I answered her, one moment when she spoke to me. Although she did not know who I was, nor would I force her to remember in her precarious state, she sensed she knew me, was not afraid of me, even if she did not yet totally trust me. The trust would come slowly, but I had all the patience now in the universe, because I was believing she would return to life and to me, and to all who loved her. I truly wished for and believed this to be the miracle I waited for, just as all who loved her waited too.
Just seeing her again alive in her own mind, set my desires on fire
Just seeing her again alive in her own mind, set my desires on fire. Like a voyeur who had been invited into her fantasies, I felt her awakening and I felt it as much or more than she was feeling.I was moved to come out from my guise and say to her “Mine I am your Intimate.We will make it through,” but my own careful intuition whispered to me, “No! Let her wake on her own to the reality of you. If she calls your name, answer her. If she does not, guide her, protect her, stay close to her. She is riding on her own pounded -out destiny..that not even you inside of her can change.”
I dried her tears with my own healing
I dried her tears with my own healing, her compassion and her sensitivity caused me to disassociate at times so profoundly, that I could not speak to her, but only observe her in astonished silence… and impotency. I realized I had never known her, not all of her, for when I entered into her before in my world, and that last night in her room, she still had small strands of resistance, that did not allow me to see into every door I wished, yet now, I was able to, and it was such a strong experience for me, I was left unable to be my own best self, which would be to serve as her patient security and her gentle guide.
I too saw and lived the colors they projected onto her…
I too saw and lived the colors they projected onto her, I was with her, and bound by the greatest sense of trying to keep my own balance so as not to unbalance her. She was many times fearful, unsure, confused, yet little by little she began to trust me and to trust I loved her, and in so many ways she began to show me she also loved me. I was thinking that maybe this would be our life, here with the machinery pumping the vital force into her fragile flesh, we could dream together and no one would have to wake us up. That sounded better than losing her. If the treatment did succeed and she moved up into consciousness, I would find a way once again slowly to let her know that I was her Intimate and I had been and was with her always.
Then one day, I heard them say, “This will be the last time we try. If she does not respond, we will respect the family’s wishes, and remove her life support” Did I know what that might mean to me if that eventuality occurred? It would mean the end of her physical self, and would also be the end of mine, and as I tried to prepare her for that possibility, I needed to prepare myself as well. She was so brave, and so trusting, that I became stronger too and I told her I loved her, and I begged her to trust me. I almost said,
“Mine, who dances with you here in this last waltz has loved you from the first moment he saw you…and it seems that was such a long time ago”
Instead I just gave her all my strength at the end, and when I told her to let go and fly, just fly free like a bird let out of a cage, I closed my eyes and surrendered to whatever would be my fate when her heart stopped, and her breaths ceased to fill the room.
I felt her separate from me as I felt myself separate from all that was her world and our level of reality. I did not protest but truly surrendered for the love of her, and the desire to witness her release. It was a thinning and a tearing, but painless, almost an aching joy, and there was no remorse. The wind and my love was what I felt, and no fear existed. I will not tell you more than you would understand, as it is not why I have called you here. In a timeless place much time can pass unnoticed and I only hope I come at the right time for you.
Filed with all that I had never seen
Filled with all that I had never seen..I realized there was still an essence of me, something was who I remembered I was, and with that tiny remembrance, there came a longing to join with something part of me, that had yet to lock into me. I saw all the pieces, of all the puzzles, with all the textures, and my piece, waited to have its perfect complement fitted tightly to it. There was no desperation, more an anticipation that it would happen, and releasing into that blind certainty, my vision began to see and take in the wonders of where I was now.
Worlds within worlds all on a circle
Worlds within worlds all on a circle,
Everything perfectly in order and formed,
Never was there a separation, except in our minds..
and death was mislabeled as an ending,
at most was but a hard crossing,
but then the love came surrounding,
and we were re- joined.
She is with me
She is with me now as much as I am with her and we stand on this hill with you tonight. I did try once before to come to you, but I was not strong enough to hold it still and you awoke too soon. Tonight you will remember everything I tell you, and you will be filled with peace in this knowing, that souls who learn to love and surrender, after this life has been lived, have somewhere even better to go, and love goes with them.
Live yours fully Ismara.
Love your life Ismara, and love deeply without fear those who are given to you.
Know this indelibly and tell your family, that your sister is at peace and not alone.
I come to you only once in your dreams, that she may close an open door, and she asks that only you, her sister who is her other half, be the messenger that conveys to them that she loves and thanks you all… for letting her go.
The End
Karima Hoisan
July 22,2011
San Isidro, Costa Rica
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Digital Rabbit Hole 