Part Two~ The Colored Dreams~Dream Diary Entry #1

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Karima Hoisan

I’m falling asleep while it is still light

I invite you to listen to this story read aloud to you in my voice over a selected music track. Just click the .mp3 link to hear it read while you read, or close your eyes and let me take you into my first diary entry.(Karima Diary Entry#1.mp3)

 

I’m falling asleep while it is still light out, exhausted from a stressful day. I came home and decided to get into my pajamas, not worrying if I even sleep through dinner. I’ll grab something, at some point. I almost feel more like I am passing out, instead of just taking a nap, but I have been eating pretty haphazardly, and maybe the only meal I do eat, which is balanced, is when we all sit down together at the table, and that is not every night anymore because of our schedules. Ismara won’t be home until 8 o’clock from her job, so this seems a good time to try to recharge my frazzled and drained batteries. As soon as my body stretches out, I feel as if I am spinning to sleep, not falling slowly, and then just a second later, for it feels like no time has really passed, I am waking up again.

I wake up in my bed but not in my room

I wake up in my bed, but not in my room, as this room is from another place and feels foreign and surreal. I must be dreaming, I conclude as I look at the walls surrounding me, and realize, that never even in any dreams, have I conjured up a place like this. I feel so awake while I sleep, and I even marvel at how clearly I am thinking about all this, how carefully my observations seem to be. I think it is at this point that I realize I am, what they call, lucid dreaming and decide that when I wake up, I will write down everything that I can remember. I sit up on my bed. It is my bed, exactly, except all the color has changed. The carpet the walls, the bedspread, somehow are the same hue, but everything seems as if filtered through a paler blue light that shines in thick beams through large carved openings in the wall. I expect any minute I will awaken in my own bedroom, and then I will try to remember this image, to perhaps sketch it in chalk or pencils while it is still fresh.

I have to consider everything as this dream is very different

 I have to consider everything as this dream is very different, from most of mine, which shift and change so rapidly, I can barely remember them. Ismara one time told me of a vision she had, where she actually thought I was there having it too, as I was part of her dream and it all seemed very real, in a dream-like sort of way. As soon as she awoke, she ran to my room to corroborate it, and of course I had no idea what she was talking about. I am thinking this dream is a vision, and Ismara said that when she had hers, it turned out almost prophetic, a sort of  premoniton, so I will look at everything, remember everything, and then write it all down, as soon as I get back to my awake state. I have a diary that has never been used. I think my Aunt gave one to each of us when we were fifteen, but it never really interested me. Why write about it, if you can live it fresh and not always be under the self ordered rule, that afterwords you must document every day? I think maybe diaries are for people who don’t have very interesting lives, or fear when they are older, will have almost no memories worth remembering. I guess in that case, a diary could be like a buried treasure chest, suddenly uncovered.

I am finding if I stare too long at the floor, for example…

I am finding if I stare too long at the floor, for example, which is heavily patterned, and transparent, yet filled with layers, I start to feel I will fall into a deeper level of this dream, perhaps one where I will not be as lucid, and therefore will not remember much when I wake up. I resist falling in this way. I look back towards the head of the bed, and notice for the first time, there are two pale blue spheres, made of glass or some sort of transparent material. They are sitting there, between the two pillows and I pick them up and get the feeling of them. My first reaction when I hold them, is to almost drop them, as they feel so odd in my hands. They vibrate slightly and go between a solid state, very much like glass, to a state more like pliable rubber or a round helping of over-chilled jello. Their temperature also goes between very warm, to icy cold, and seems to be connected to how fast the spheres are vibrating. I ask myself a question I would never ask myself in my waking life, “Could they be alive?”

I find with a little concentration they respond to my thoughts…

I find that with a little concentration, they respond to my thoughts, and actually begin to float and glide up and down if I imagine they are attached to my hand. I play around with them for several minutes, until I take off my concentration  inadvertently, and they float away, outside of my range of influence to cause them any effect. I watch them fade into the wall textures, almost like bubbles, but where they enter, it seems they stay, forming a new part of the wall, and the very walls themselves seem to spawn new orbs and they appear on the floor or hovering out of reach. If they are alive, they seem to be not independent creatures but something tied to the greater blueprint of the building plan. This world feels like nothing I have ever experienced in dreams. I am so curious about it, and yet a little apprehensive, wondering just how deep I want to go, and if I really could wake myself up at any moment if I feel threatened.

I decide to get up and inspect my surroundings

I decide to get up and inspect my surroundings, and the feel of the floor on my bare feet is like cool glass. I avoid as well as I can the angle of looking down, because vertigo tugs at my balance when I do peer below me, at the endless layers and floor, all semi transparent, yet with patterns and images superimposed. It is mind wrenching. Although the walls look solid, and have three-dimensional bars and tubes, that seem to block the way, when I press my hand against one wall, I find it sort of gives to my push, but at the same time pulls me into it, much like it did to the disappearing spheres. My first reaction is to pull back, as it seems to be a very strong force, and I would lose control if I allowed it to grab hold of me. I take turns, trying the other walls, pressing lightly my palms against them, and testing them. All of them but the first seem to be solid, so I am obligated to overcome my fear and allow the wall to take me through, unless I wish to stay trapped in this small room with only my bed in it, and nothing more

I walk  easily through the wall of the room my bed is in

I walk easily through the wall of the room my bed is in, and it gives way with no resistance, actually pulling me smoothly to the other side. Oddly enough, I do not feel afraid of this process anymore. I keep reminding myself that I am dreaming, and very aware I am too, so that any minute I calculate it is too frightening, I will awaken using the tricks Ismara and I perfected when we were little.  We would pretend we were at the bottom of a pool, underwater and by pushing up hard with our feet, we would reach the surface in a splash, and would be once again awake. I walk a few meters to the other side and peer through a lattice work, almost like French windows, but with tiny thin crosspieces with no glass. The wall is beautiful in pale shades of blue green, but at first it is hard to make out what is on the other side.

The glow of the scene makes it difficult to see clearly to the other side

The glow of the scene makes it difficult to see clearly to the other side, and I press my face into the structure that separates one side from the other. This wall is impassable, feels like steel,  although it looks like it is made out of glass. It does not even budge when I put all my strength against it, trying to push my way in, as I have just learned to do, on the last wall. I position myself in front of a section, which has a large opening, and as I become used to the glare, I see a woman sitting on a couch on the other side. It appears to be Ismara, seated in our conscious world, on the sofa that is on the landing of the house we live in.

I recognize it is not Ismara at all, but myself

 I recognize it is not Ismara at all, but myself, and I catch my breath. “What an odd dream I am having!” but I resist the urge to wake myself up, for a few more minutes. I call out to myself through the barrier, I say, “If you hear me, make me wake up” But I don’t seem to hear anything. I am waiting for something it seems, and I don’t appear to be part of the dream, but somehow outside of it. I see myself over there totally conscious and this makes me ponder until I almost shudder with the effort. If I am here, on this side,dreaming, and I am conscious of it, and I see myself across a divide and I look like I am awake, I perhaps could be over there dreaming, I could be dreaming this moment I am living now on this side. I shut my eyes quickly as I feel disoriented for a second, and when I open them, it is as if what I just thought becomes real, but on one of those deeper levels, I was trying very hard to avoid.

I am now the one on the couch, but this room, like my bed before, is not in my waking world

I am now the one on the couch, but this room, like my bed before, is not in my waking world. I am dressed in clothes I don’t own, just as I saw myself  dressed on the other side of the barrier. I am in the same clothes, and I am wearing fishnet stockings and laced-up boots. I don’t think I own either of those things nor have I ever had them in my closet. I am looking towards a window and I know I am waiting for some kind of sign, or something to happen. I have to make a supreme effort to move my head out of the position I have it turned towards. I feel stilled, and the very air itself fights me to change my position. I am like a cloned copy of a full-length sculpture of myself that someone has set on a couch as a prop simultaneously in two different worlds. I stop struggling to understand at this point, and let my eyes wander over the scene. The colors are magnificent, purples and greens on the bronze leather-tooled couch, against walls of antique pink and rose. The first thing I think about, is how I will paint this scene, and what paints I might use. I allow myself a quick glance below my feet and feel the rush of being thrown quickly off-balance, by the sheer height, clearness and depth of the floors, with many more floors below this one. Heights have always made me reel with vertigo.

No. this is not any room I know, but it has a hauntingly attractive quality for me

No, this is not any room I know, but it has a hauntingly attractive quality for me.
I feel an energy in this room, a presence, but although I can now move my head freely, I see no one, or anything more than this couch and the strange walls, that seem to change patterns, while I am not looking. I imagine music, and I begin to hear what sounds like a piano being cautiously played upon, one note at a time. My bare thighs feel warm against the tooling which I picture is leaving a slight pattern like a temporary tattoo across it. I am overcome with desire to meet someone and maybe have a dream-affair, a nighttime tryst that no one can accuse me of. I am lucid, and I am real, and I wish to control this dream now and feel passion, and to want and be wanted and taken and loved. All these desires that for various reasons, I no longer am feeling in my conscious life. Ahh to dream, I think and let loose all the wanting, all the  passion and pent up feelings that I hold inside like a tightly wound wire. Now I am questioning if these are really my own original thoughts and wants, or if this presence I perceive that blows across the room, sometimes almost underneath me, is feeding them into my mind. I stand up and walk to the middle of the floor and look down. My action is almost a challenge, a dare to whatever is here, to show itself to me, and bewitch me and sweep me over the edge of my guarded passion.

Just hen I feel something grab hold of my ankle

Just then I feel something grab hold of my ankle and jerk me down to my knees.
The power is so strong it almost takes my breath from me and from the entire room. My heart pounds, the beat increasing with each second , but it is not only fear that speeds the pace until I am gasping for breath, trembling with the adrenaline that shoots through me, but longing, dark deep longing, that aches in places, I have consciously tried to bury and abandon.

I am held by a hand, that has come through the glass floor and now moors me to it

I am held by a hand, that has come through the glass floor and now moors me to it. I don’t take a breath. My heart pounds, and my body trembles. The hand holds me firmly by my right ankle, and I am bound in an awkward position, where I can’t really sit back or move, so I just hold myself as steady as I can, and look down to my right below me. I can make out an image of a human hand, but it lays still just a few inches below the glass, yet what I am feeling are fingers, slowly tracing the shape of my ankle, and exploring me, like a blind person touches a face to get a sense and a feel of how they are, beautiful, ugly, balanced or unbalanced, etc. This is what the hand does to me, it captures me and then sends fingers, many fingers that touch my leg, feeling it, tracing it, squeezing it, until I grow faint with desire. In the way the hand begins to massage and squeeze my calf, climbing up to my thigh, I know it finds touching me a pleasant experience. It does it with almost an innocent quality, as if it is not used to touching human flesh from the waking world on the other side of the barrier, and I don’t want it to stop. I close my eyes, and fill up with feeling, hoping it will go on, move higher, and I imagine this hand attached to a beautiful body, one that rises out of the glass floor and overpowers any resistance I might offer, by making me want it to take me. I hear myself saying “Yes..go on!” in a hoarse whisper. I am not sure if I am controlling this dream, or if this is a normal lucid dream at all. Perhaps I am somewhere else, and have no control over anything.

 A warm sensation begins to climb up my body and overtake it

A warm sensation begins to climb up my body and overtake it, while I remain totally passive, but participating, giving up, with no struggle, allowing these hands to take me where they wish to, and just as I am entering into sensations that can not be easily reversed without deep pain of frustrating personal restraint, the fingers stop their sensual journey of discovery on me and just hold me in place, while I begin to feel it is observing me with eyes from under the floor. This drives me into wild undiscovered fantasies, just the thought and although I am clothed, with skirt, stockings and panties, I know this creature has eyes that can see through anything it wishes to, and now what it wishes to see, is me crouched over him, and he looks up at me , into me, and this look sets me up to surrender all that I can and I give him what he wants to see. I know it, I feel he moves me on, watching me and breathing. I hear the breaths in my head..He breathes, and his breath too quickens with my own. My eyes turn up into my thrown -back  head, and if this is a dream, my body feels it as real and I melt all over the glass surface and he watches me turn to liquid and hears me moan. I know this is what he wants from me, and I am powerless to not give it to him. After many minutes held there, even after, I am still motionless, in this difficult position,  then all of a sudden, he lets go of my ankle and I am free.

As quickly as this presence comes, it leaves through the wall and disappears

As quickly as this presence comes, it leaves through the wall and disappears. I feel it  shoot past me, like a cool ribbon of swirling air, and pass through the wall, to parts unknown, and unimagined. I  get up and rush to the windows, if they can be called that, to try to catch any glimpse of it. It feels masculine to some degree, perhaps due to my own sexual orientation, but it feels, “it” too, not limited to any human standards of gender description. It was a curious, and yet powerful entity, that had chosen to explore my own most private inner fantasies, the ones I never talk about or share with anyone, not even Ismara.

“How did this red globe appear on my hand,” I asked so surprised

“How did this red globe appear in my hand?” I ask so surprised, as it is just there when I turn from the window. The feel of it is not the same as the pale blue balls, I had actually been able to manipulate with my thoughts. This red ball is hollow and so light, I almost do not realize I am holding it, until I actually see it in my hand, balanced there. I stand very quietly and almost am afraid to take a breath, afraid I perhaps might drop it. I feel this has been given to me by the entity that held me captive and enraptured.

The air begins to change and electrify

The air begins to change and electrify and I see the floors projecting new images of structures, and shapes that rotate below, causing the effect of making everything seem like it is disintegrating before my eyes. The red orb, starts to emanate a blue light, that changes to smoke, that changes to a strange essence I  can almost perceive as solid. I feel it is saying goodbye, and then I hear a synced chorus of human-like voices, but rather synthesized, not actually human, that chant these words over and over again.
“Take the sphere with you. Try to take it with you. Do take it with you. Take the sphere with you. Try to take it with you. Do take it with you” repeated so many times, the words begin to make no sense, and turn into sounds with no meaning, and I know I am starting to wake up. I clutch the orb protectively, and make my best attempt to take it with me.

There is no sphere in my hand when I awake

There is no sphere in my hand when I awake. There is only the sensation, many sensations of having been part of a world that was somewhere between awake and asleep, but not of either. My first thought is to look for my diary and a pen, and I do this quickly, and begin to write it all down, incorporating every detail I can remember, as they flood into my mind in vivid imagery. I am exhausted, not rested, and still tingle and twitch, my nerves  trying to recuperate, and it is like slowly returning from a deep tunnel under the sea. I know this bedroom, this pen is what I call real but everything I saw and felt entered my perceptions as real too, so very real that I feel moved beyond myself, how I had so quickly surrendered my will to a stronger one I could not even see. I am not sure why it was important to bring the red ball back. The petition of course seems impossible, yet in some way I feel I failed to complete what was asked of me. I write it all, and when I get to the end, where they are chanting, I hear the warning, the admonishment that was surprisingly added to their sing-song at the very end.
“If you tell anyone. You will not be invited back. You will never come back”

I know this is the truth

I know this is the truth. The final words, are final, and I will respect this rule, as I am truly wishing I might return and know more about the different layers of the floors, each one perhaps offering, experiences beyond my experience.  Standing on the upstairs landing, I hear footsteps outside the front door approaching, and I realize it must be Ismara returning from work. I close my diary and return to my room to hide it carefully. I know with her, it is not necessary to lock it up, just if it comes up, tell her it is private, as we have worked out a code for that, so she will understand and respect it. I share everything with her usually, well almost everything but…this…this world..I can not and I will not jeopardize being locked out  forever, because I could not obey the one rule asked of me.

to be continued…

Karima Hoisan
April 9, 2011
©2011 all rights reserved

please see my comment below

Posted in Prose Vignettes, The Colored Dreams | Tagged , , , , | 11 Comments

Oasis Moon

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Karima Hoisan

Oasis Moon
for Umahmad.

You are my other prayer, the one that has never been answered.
You are the fleeting memory that’s getting lost in a circle of reality,
Sacred words uttered with little faith, forehead submitting to the floor,
The repetitive question “why?” the never-to -be- revealed unsolved mystery.

Once upon our time you glided down the streets of the Middle East,
My eyes followed you everywhere, all my dreams included you.
Do you understand why now I must protest this shifting script,
That asks of you to be locked up in slippers and bathrobe,
Thorazined in a room with no view ?

Yes, perhaps for effect, I might have let you get lost for awhile,
If I could have been the Creator and writer of your singular play.
It would have been fitting, as we had all placed a little too much hope in you,
Would have served as a text book lesson of humility,
When you took off to run away.

But like the prodigal son, I would have written all of us to be your father,
Standing on a hill watching you glide across the sands returning.
Knowing that after the opulent welcome home banquet we had prepared for you,
I would lay down by your side, and you would forever end,
this painful lifetime of yearning.

Devils inside, or fate’s bad chemistry, whatever it is some day proven to be,
There is no one steering at the helm, and your ship and me are going down.
Moon from our last Oasis rises, but now we’re both too far away to see,
And you can’t weep for what has been lost, but I can, and do openly,
For what has not been found.

You are my other prayer, the one that has never been answered.
You are the fleeting memory that’s getting lost in a circle of reality,
Sacred words uttered with little faith, forehead submitting to the floor,
The repetitive question “why?” The never-to -be- revealed  unsolved mystery.

Karima Hoisan
Nov.20th, 2010
Finca La Generosa Linc Island  SL
© 2010 all Rights Reserved

Posted in Poems | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Cracked Planet

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Karima Hoisan

“In Circuit City below a cracked blue sky…”

~Please Click this Link (Cracked Planet.mp3) It is a sound file you can stream to hear the poem recited by me along with the music of Clint Mansell~ Enjoy!!

Cracked Planet

for Menubar Memorial the artist

In Circuit City below a cracked blue sky,
all the Kings and fiery stampede of horses
cannot re -assemble this mess.
beep* ting ting*  tock tock*
Countdown.
Remember when you were a kid
and you had those weird dreams?
boop* boop* boop*
like water dripping in your sink?
The planets were coming down too close
and leaving their orbits behind.
tick* boop* ping ting*
and you knew that was not right?
Then the whole entire sky opened?
ahhh* gaaaah* oooh*
Countdown. Start to count…down.

If you got a way to get off… get off!
wow* ohhh* yes* god*
B’cause this dying spinning sphere,
Is cracking up and coming to a stop.
So..if you got a way to get off,
jump on it and go!
This orb will be a forgotten rented space,
in outer space.
Who will be left to remember?
ones and zeros…ones and zeros… ones and zeros.
boop* boop* boop* boop*

The experiment is shelved.
It is all over.
It is all done.
ahh* nooo* boop* oh well….*
One conclusion drawn…
If you leave it to the humans,
they will crack their egg
tsssh*tssshhh* tssshhhh*
and cook themselves into the omelette.

All of the love moans
wow* ohh* yes* god*,
of all the words, “Turn right here”  “Do not cross the line” “Now you have done it” “Last Call” “Right at First Light” “Truth in your dog’s eyes” “Humanity”, “Insanity” “Inhumanity” “Sanity”
All the words will go.
The Game starts to get picked up,
sucked up into the broken sky.
Is it over? Did we lose? Is it over?

In The Circuit City below a cracked blue sky,
all the Kings and fiery stampede of horses
cannot re-assemble this mess.
beep* ting ting*  tock tock*
Countdown.
Remember when you were a kid
and you had those weird dreams?
boop* boop* boop*
like water dripping in your sink?
The planets were coming down too close
and leaving their orbits behind.
tick* boop* ping ting*
and you knew that wasn’t right?
Then the whole entire sky opened?
ahhh* gaaaah* oooh*
Countdown. Start to count…down.

Karima Hoisan
May 6, 2011
Virtual Gallery LINC Island
© 2011 all rights reserved

Posted in Poems, Slices of Second Life, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

The Colored Dreams Part Two ~ Chapter One ~Transition

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Karima Hoisan

This post begins Part Two of my small prose series entitled “The Colored Dreams”
Chapter One is a transition, a bridge between Part One and Part Two. I will list the six posts, or chapters, that make up the first part of this story. As it has a linear logic to the story-line’s progression, I recommend reading Part One first, before you begin to read Part Two which now begins in this post under the heading Chapter One Transition. The urls for Part One, in correct order are:

1. The Red Dream
2. The Ship of White Dreams
3. The Candy-Apple Red and Blue Dream
4. The Deco-Pink and Bronze Dream
5. The Turquoise and Green Dream
6. The Orange Dream~The Last Dream

I want to thank my readers, thank you all for your wonderful comments and feedback. You are the major reason, I decided to write Part Two. I hope you will enjoy this second series as much as the first.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Chapter One ~Transition

My name is Ismara

My name is Ismara, and I am on vacation, a sort of forced vacation, promoted and sponsored by my family and close friends, as they all agreed I needed some time on my own, to get away and rest. I lost my twin sister to an endless coma, that was terminated by my family’s mutual agreement, to shut off her ventilator, and allow her to rest. I am sure losing any family member, any loved one might also be this painful, but my grief seems to self-perpetuate, and there is no getting over it and back to my life, as some suggest I should. I am really trying.
We were twins, so this is yet another factor, and I have seen a  counselor who specializes in that, in consoling a twin who has been left behind by the death of the other. To say we were close is just a redundancy. We were twins. When Karima was in the head-on accident, and was hovering between life and death for days, and not stabilized, I did feel her at times, try to reach out to me. Not usually when I was at her bedside, but at night in my dreams I heard her voice faintly. I realize this could have been just small moments of my own wishful thinking, but it seemed she was struggling to survive and regain consciousness. At some point that I wasn’t aware of, there was a change, and it was as if she had moved away to some foreign land and forgotten everything and everybody. We all talked to her, much more at first, and there was a constant stream of sound, and love poured over her, by all who knew and cared for her. We played her favorite music and all of us, had hope that at any minute she might be returned, vital and eager to take her life back from the clutches of the coma that had snatched her away, like a kidnapper who takes a victim, and holds her without ransom.

A tropical paradise was prescribed for me

A tropical paradise was prescribed for me by my best friend. She had come here last year and said it was as close as heaven ever gets to the earth, and rallied my family behind the idea, until one day they slipped an itinerary with a ticket into my hands, and said “Find your peace Ismara”
There is an expression my grandparents always used in Spanish, that goes,
“La calentura no está en las sábanas” which means “The fever is not in the sheets.” Lying in this hammock, staring out at a crystal-mirror of aqua blue, I brought my fever with me I’m afraid, as instead of feeling peace, I am still feeling loss and rolling anxiety. On one level, I see how beautiful my surroundings are, the tropical lushness, the cleansing waves, the star-filled nights, but on another level, all that I see that is beautiful, makes me wish I could share it with her. I lay in hammocks, going from one to another, and try to read, while the words start to form long strings of gray code and quickly do not make sense. I bought a variety of books, mostly self-help ones that were gifts, grief counseling suggestions, etc, but none of them seem to be making any difference, nor can I concentrate long enough to maybe give them a chance to.

None of the words were strong enough to break the fever...

None of the words were strong enough to break the fever I carried inside, no pampering, piña coladas, or deep natural massages, were astute enough to drop my temperature to normal. I wanted that, I wanted everything to go back to normal, but that was the one thing I had to accept would not happen. Normal was thinking of something at the same time with Karima, maybe thousands of miles apart and picking up the phone to call her, and find it busy, because later we would discover, she was doing the exact same thing and calling me. Every twin in a way, is always  emotionally conjoined, sharing heart, head, liver, kidneys, all the vital organs, but not on a physical level, on some other level, that I am not even sure what to call it. I am like that Siamese twin, who barely survived the surgery to separate us, knowing my sister didn’t make it. It’s hard for me to put it into words, but something died years ago, when she left us to sleep in the deep crevices of the mind, where none of us, not even I, her twin, could reach her.

The water supports me in a way nothing else can

The water supports me in a way that nothing else can. I search it out many times a day. We were born under the water sign, and Karima said she felt the tides in her thinking, and that our emotions were as ruled by them as they were ruled by hormones, stress, love, fear, or our basic passions. To hear her voice in my head is to hear my own, and on a telephone, no one could tell us apart. The afternoon she finally was allowed to rest, and I say it this way, as I have come to accept that it was the only compassionate thing we could do, I could not see her. I was the only one, that didn’t go to see her, and I refused to see her again in her open casket. Everyone of course could understand to some degree, because except for our hair color , we were quite identical. Seeing her lying on a hospital gurney, or inside a tufted satin -lined, hardwood casket, would be too much for me,  and too  shockingly familiar, as it would be like peering into my own death, and mourning myself. In some ways I guess that is what I am still doing, and hopefully, all my family is right, here on this tropical island of tranquility and Nature, I will put it to rest.

I had the hope, even with her lying in the coffin, that she would get up

I had the hope, even with her lying in the coffin, that she would get up at any point and join us all in the quiet living-room of the funeral parlor. It was this same hope that kept all of us going for nearly two years, until we finally lost it, after we had agreed to a radical and very experimental therapy to reach victims who had been declared brain dead. The doctor who was still testing it, used a type of rapid- frame color lite -laser and for periods of time, would bombard her retinas with these pure clear tones of various colors. The treatment went on for three months, and we all agreed, that if she showed no signs of improvement, we would let her go, as she would not be coming back. She never responded, and that moment was the last time I actually saw her face. I pleaded with her with all my internal power and thoughts, and voice and gestures to come back to me and just say my name, but there was no change, no miraculous awakening, and I walked out of her room sobbing and  did not look at her again.
She was gone. I knew it at that moment. We all did. The decision was to be taken.

Now a few months later I am in paradise

Now, a few months later, I am in paradise, where even the octopus is friendly and non- aggressive, so they say.
“Ismara take the boat ride, it will do you good”
“Ismara fishing could be just the right thing”
“Ismara, that nice looking man over there has asked about you.”
“Ismara we have a tango class, a turtle walk, a butterfly farm”…etc etc
I know everyone means well, and although I am in my own self locking cage, the scenery outside my bars, is very beautiful. In some ways, I am happy to be here.

Because we were born Pisces, neither of us feared water

Because we were born Pisces, neither of us feared  water or almost anything that lived in it. I was my happiest under water, and perhaps it was the best choice for driving the fever from within me, and allowing me to float and think about what I was going to do. I was not here just to try to find peace and come back sun-tanned, with a smile on my face. No, I had something, a decision that I must make, and it was the kind I felt might define my life. I had to be sure about my choice, because it was one I had pondered and weighed for over two years now.

 Karima began a diary a year before the accident

Karima began a diary a year before the accident. Of course I knew about it, because she told me. She had doodle pads, sketch pads, and a collection of drawings, and paintings, digitalized portfolios of all her work as she was an art student who was to graduate in the Fall. One day I asked her about it, out of curiosity, because I saw it was the only thing she did not share with me. We had an understanding and we both kept it, if something was not for anyone else’s eyes we would declare it “Level Three” Sometimes it was just a conversation not to be passed around, so when I asked her what she was writing in her little book, she said “Sorry, It’s Level Three” and that was the last I asked her of it. She used to write in it almost every morning, and I tried to imagine what she could be filling the pages with, as she had just awoken. Perhaps she waited to write down the last day, on the next morning. There really isn’t any “right way” you must keep a diary, so I let it go as it was just how she liked to do it. When she had the accident, no one touched one single thing in her room. Everything stayed the same, and in place, with linens changed weekly, curtains washed monthly, waiting for her return.

I am not sure why I took her diary...

I am not sure why I took her diary maybe a week after she was hospitalized, but it was never to spy on her. I did it thinking, as I imagined she would have thought for me, if things were reversed. If she had not shared this little book with me, then it was certain she would not wish it to fall into other hands, of family or friends who might somehow stumble upon it. I knew where she kept it and I went in and I took it and brought it back to my own room. To this day, I feel a great guilt over having taken it, have struggled with myself for years, and I am even more plagued now, that I have brought it with me,  still not knowing what I will finally do with it.

I never opened it..

I never opened it. Not two years ago, when she had the accident, and not since she has been buried. It has remained bound and private with her “Level Three”  being respected even beyond her death.
I seek the beach out at night, and walk along the shore, letting my pants cuffs catch the shoreline waves, and I consider I have only two choices, and everything tells me that one must be made right here on this beach, near this campfire. Tonight I will decide what is the correct thing to do.

Karima and I both believed in trusting inner voices

Karima and I both believed in trusting our inner voices, and I laid back on a piece of drift wood and tried to listen to mine. The waves chanted in rhythm to my whispered words. Only two choices possible, and the beat sounded like this
“Burn it…or Read it”
I had done days of soul-searching, I prayed, and I tried to get some kind of sign, I begged her to come to me in any form, and tell me what she wished I would do.
“Burn it…or Read it” I had never once opened it, even though it had no locking device. It was bound in a red sash, so easily unwrapped, that I decided to hide it  in a leather purse, zipped it into a back pocket where it stayed this whole time, until I took it out tonight to bring it with me on my walk.
“Burn it…or Read it”

I silently begged her forgiveness if I were wrong

I silently begged her forgiveness, if I were wrong in doing this, and I opened the diary to the middle and read, just one page by firelight and moonlight. Reading her words was like hearing her voice, and hearing my voice, in my head along with hers, was such a deep moment, a lump caught in my throat and stayed stuck there. I felt her close to me, oh… so close to me! I don’t mean, just in my head, I felt her on the wind, and she was present. You might think me crazy, and blame it on my grief, or my post traumatic stress as some have labeled this sadness, but in that moment when I read only a few words, I sensed her approval for what I had just done. It was almost like having her back, her voice, her thoughts her humor, I knew it was all in there. Inside she had captured the deepest part of herself, not in her paints and her drawings left behind, but in her words that described, her nightly journey’s into an amazing world of colors and mysteries. riddles, and transcendence, that opened its gates wide for her, every night when she slipped into her dreams. This was the diary of her dreams, and now I held it and I pressed her words to my heart.

"Tonight a red ball is placed in my hands..

July-5th “Tonight a red ball is placed in my hands, and I ask the ones who pass through my room, if this holds a special significance for me..or for them. The girl who has been coming and visiting regularly, just smiles. So far I have seen this ball on three different occasions, and always, when I ask about it, soon after I wake up…”

to be continued…

Karima Hoisan
May, 5, 2011
LINC Island
© 2011 all rights reserved

Posted in Prose Vignettes, Slices of Second Life, The Colored Dreams, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments

Pale Veiled Memory

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Karima Hoisan

Pale spectre in the mind...

Please click on this music link The Poet Acts to listen to, while you read, and let the music set the mood.

Pale Veiled Memory
for U.

Pale specter in the mind of nighttime’s sheer illusions,
You no longer glide through my blowing veiled halls.
Hard reality, sometimes known as truth, has snatched you up
And turned you into boring mortalness, so cold and colorless .

But I remember an open window, when your time was my time,
Where we both laid and dreamed right through it, counting stars,
And our bed rocked upon a sea of excitement and uncertainty,
Your hand pressed to my face, when I was sleeping, when I was weeping.

I Will you, to walk again and meet me in new midnight chambers,
You were the only one in all my life who fit so perfectly,
I grow weary in this quest of  finding what we had, in someone new,
If I could build a cemetery and bury you, then there might be, a chance for me.

Glide to me lithe memory, that holds nothing of reality, I stand waiting.
If prayers are heard, than let my summons be your greatest joy,
To lay with you on satin sheets with curtains blowing wild on summer- breeze,
One last time, may you be mine, then tenderly, I set you free… Oh, pale veiled memory.

Karima Hoisan
May 2, 2011
Renacer Link Island, SL
©2011 all rights reserved

* please see my comment below

Posted in Poems | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

The Unbalancing Act

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Karima Hoisan

The Unbalancing Act

Enjoy the music (click this link) TINY TEARS which sets the mood of the poem


The Unbalancing Act

My scale is so sensitive...

My scale is so sensitive,

One harsh look or word

Tips me back into the void.

Juggling like a pro...

 Juggling like a pro,

The sad, the bright, and the ugly,

Sometimes makes me fall.

Handle me with care…

Handle me with care,

Because I am as fragile as they come,

Without being reduced to shards.

This glass balance, when it breaks...

This glass balance, when it breaks,

Drops colored tear- shaped prisms

All over the public streets.

The upright passersby stare at me

The upright passersby stare at me
.
They retract their hands

In case I fall towards them.

Under cover, I practice my moves

 
Under cover, I practice my moves.

Behind closed doors, I dupe myself

Into thinking I am improving my act.


Juggling dull blades and my sanity
Has proven to be an unimaginative show
.
The audience bores, leaves me alone.

Karima Hoisan
May, 2006
Jordan
© 2006 all rights reserved

This poem was written in 2006. I was in a poetry workshop at the time and I added this footnote:

“‏
Author’s comments;
Depression is hard enough on the depressed,
‏but those standing near, are left impotent,
frustrated, and disarmed.”

I found this poem in a drawer today and decided to post it, for a few reasons. 1. I could never write a poem like this today, because I am not depressed now.(I am very grateful for that)  2. I know that both poetry and coming into Second Life gave me my self worth back, which is something deeply lost in depression. 3. Having a loved one in this condition, or any mental illness is so very hard. I know as I have seen this “life from both sides now.”





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Ode To Spring~Poets Karima Hoisan & Emile Sands~

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Karima Hoisan

Thursday May 5th 7pm slt...Don't Miss It!!

I cordially invite you all, to a very special poetry reading in honor of Spring.
Thursday, May 5th from 7pm to 8pm slt at Kari’s Kantina del Mar Linc Island,
Emile and I will be reading selected poems for Spring, by well- loved and acclaimed poets, mixed with our own humble offerings…
We will be utilizing SL voice for reading the poems, and playing the hand picked music for each, on the music stream.
I hope you will join us for this very enjoyable, cultural event, at my relaxed, seaside Bolero Bar. Here is the taxi to take you there on Thursday May 5th 7pm-8pmslt
“Kari’s Kantina del Mar”
We look forward to entertaining you.

Posted in Announcements, Live Shows, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Lonely

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Karima Hoisan

The doors push open and out she comes…

 Click this link to hear my reciting of the free verse poem “Lonely”

Lonely

for Anje Aichi the artist/photographer
inspired by the photographic piece “Lonely”

The doors push open and out she comes,
an ungraceful arrival but she’s looking good,
while she looks both ways up and down the track.
He wasn’t waiting there, and there is no one to be found.
She hadn’t quite grown out of her white Mary-Janes,
when she grew into her Victoria’s Secret.
Meters it seemed, of young thorough -bred- legs swathed in black silk and sheer lace…quite the fashion statement! There outta be a law.…
 No one was on the platform when her subway car pushed her out the door.
and she had a bit too much to drink.
If she would have worn spike heels,
she would have fallen on her cute little fanny,
winding up staring into the mirror of a dirty subway sink.
It was so lonely looking at those graffiti walls,
all dank and not promising what she had hoped for.
No heavy footsteps of her pretender, or any pretender for that matter,
who would take her arm, and fill her up, chase the loneliness right out of her
“Go get away….
 She was so lonely, taken to the danger point, but she wasn’t aware.
What was on her mind, was to have a good time, with someone who was smooth at pretending he cared,
even if she faked it, never being 100% there.
It flowed, the naughty talk, and the come- get- me- looks, and hip to hip dancing, and she liked how she could pick up the pace,
with just a kiss, or a whisper, or a little white lie.
Oh my…
She had that sexy innocence and you could never prove she wasn’t, well…innocent, not just by looking at her.
Only she knew what she was doing, and why she was doing it,
and watching her do her thing, I could never bring the verdict in,
but I think she loved to be in control, although, she liked to do the sweet faint of heart, and flutter her eyelashes, check her look in the mirror then check you out checking her, that game…
She loved it all, so, when I stepped out of the shadows,
she put her little lipstick away and right through her tinted glasses I saw,
oh she was lonely enough, to smile at me and say,
“Hello.”
Just one of those things, because… I was kinda lonely too.

Karima Hoisan
April 29, 2011
Virtual Gallery Linc Island
© 2011 all rights reserved

*please see my comment below

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Buoy In The Night

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Karima Hoisan

Can a buoy be immune to the coming of the wave?

Click the link below for the *˚mp3˚* to hear my recorded reading of the poem to music “Buoy in the Night mp3” I will include the poem also written out below.

Buoy In The Night

Can a buoy be immune to the coming of the wave?
Or does it meet each one head-on, lurching… trembling?
Can a buoy be unmoved, by the power of the sea?
Or does it pitch and roll, tossing to and fro, wavering… wobbling…wobbling?

Buoy in the night, rolling on a swell, never ever sinking, bobbing… bobbing,
Waves come crashing in, and waves gently retreat, you float upon the tides,
of stormy surf and undertows, and your bell can be heard clanging,
like a herd of running goats, 
ringing…chiming…clanging… banging.
Clang! Chime! Bang! Bobbing… bobbing.
Why don’t you float away? and see the oceans of the world?
The seals will climb up on you, taking shelter from the moon,
Howling… bickering…barking… barking.
Is it true what they all say? That you are chained forever,
To the bottom of the bay.  Although it’s true you’ll never sink,
You’ll never swim away. Is that the price you pay?
For never drowning… sinking… drowning?

Why don't you break your chain?

Why don’t you break your chain, and leave the shoreline… far behind?
The currents taking you, to star-rise and sunrise…
While you float, swaying…. quaking… shaking.
Just ask the next big wave, to take you when it goes,
Pulled on the moon- drunk tides, now you are fleeing…weaving… leaving.
Clang! Chime! Bang! Bobbing… bobbing.
If you say no… I’ll think it’s true, what they all say,
That you are chained forever, to the bottom of the bay.
Although it’s true you’ll never sink… you’ll never swim away.
Is that the price you pay, for never drowning… drowning…drowning?

Karima Hoisan
April 28th 2011
Linc Island, Sl
© 2011 all rights reserved

Posted in Poems, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

The Orange Dream~The Last Dream~

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Karima Hoisan

This is the last entry of the Colored Dream Prose Vignettes. If you are coming upon this page for the first time, and haven’t had a chance to read the others, I warmly recommend starting from the beginning, unless you are a person who enjoys reading the last page of a book first, to know where you are headed. I personally enjoy the “getting there,” the journey towards an unknown conclusion myself, but it would be very pushy of me as the author, to insist too much on how these stories should be read. Just know, the series ends on this post, and I hope you enjoy this one and all of them, if you read the others. I will write a comment listing in order, the posts building up to this one, if you are interested. This is my most serious attempt at writing short prose based on my Second Life experiences and inspirations, and it has been a labor of love, in that I was swept away by the scenery that inspires this prose series. I would like to invite you once again, to enjoy these stories in all the ways they can be enjoyed, including the music I have chosen for each. One of my readers said she likes to put it on, and read the story out-loud, that it is more of a total experience that way. In any case this link will take you to another tab, where you can listen to the music while you enjoy the photos and words. ~Music Link~  Now… please come with me into the last colored dream, the Orange Dream.

I am lying on a couch, facing the back

When I first wake into the dream, I am lying on a couch facing the back, staring into bright orange pillows. As I have said before, each journey is strikingly different from the one before it, not only in the very obvious color differences, but in the way, it comes over me after I drink the liquor. This potion is slowly bringing me here, and I almost believe I have just fallen asleep, and am waking in my own bed, but I am wrong, I am totally in the dream now, of the dream. I am in the colored moment again.

I get up from the couch and try to recognize my surroundings

I get up from the couch and try to recognize my surroundings. I check to see how I am dressed, and of course am not surprised to see I am wrapped in the very same bright orange color that covers everything I see, walls, floors, furniture, all in the deepest, richest marriage of red and yellow. It has never been a favorite color of mine, but today it suits my mood, one of excitement and perhaps even high-strung nerves, that wonder where this last and final dream will take me and what it will show me. I like how the short skirt moves and shimmers, almost like butterfly wings. I stand immobile having no idea where to go and what to do when suddenly I hear his voice, playfully close to me,

“May I have the next dance?”

“May I have the next dance?”
I do not see him as I see my surroundings, but I do feel him now as he takes my right hand, and holds it poised, his own right hand pressing against the back of my waist, and I almost swoon in joy. I am not exaggerating, I feel I will lose consciousness, or whatever state I am now in. When we wait so long for something that never comes, and then all of a sudden, when least expected, *poof* there it is, it can be like having your breath pulled out of you. If it wasn’t so wanted, it could feel frightening, this adrenaline pounding all through me. These are not the liquid’s effect on me, but his.
“Would you care to waltz with me my dear? I always sensed you had hoped I would ask . Am I right?”
“Oh yes, Yes, of course you are right. You read all my thoughts, and know me perhaps better than I know myself.”
We dance, a dance so real I know I will be marked forever by this moment. He seems so different today, more accessible as if we were friends. I hold all of it deep inside like a treasure. Then, the dance ends and I see many nets of light slowly descend around me.

A small fear of the unknown circles me too

A small fear of the unknown circles me too, and I stand very still, but knowing he is close, I try to calm myself, by saying what he always says to me “Trust what comes. Live it all. There is nothing to fear”
He speaks to me again, his voice soft and reassuring, “I have told you that this will be your last colored dream. Are you curious about anything? Is there anything you want to know?
I answer very quickly and honestly,
“I am not sure why this has to end, I mean my colored dreams. They are part of my life now, as you are. I feel anxious about it all just…ending.”
“Don’t be anxious. They have come to an end now, but I know you take much with you, memories, sensations, realizations, emotions, all of these are part of you, that I believe you will never forget.”

“And you? Will I see you again?”

And you? Will I see you again?”
This of course is my biggest fear, and I hold my breath for his answer.
His voice is loving and he holds me close to him. I let my arms hang down quietly while he embraces me. I can’t explain it, but although I feel him around me, next to me, I still can not actually touch him, so I have learned to not even try. Feeling him there is enough, and if my arms can not hold him, his arms do hold me.
I feel the silence too prolonged, and wonder why he doesn’t answer, so I ask him again, trying to keep my voice from cracking, as I am thinking perhaps I won’t see him past today.

I feel a giant fan has been turned on

The colors blow around me, faster and closer and I feel a giant fan has been turned on above me. When the colors turn into nets of yellow and red bands separating from the orange, it seems almost symbolic, that we too will separate, once together, in the orange dream, but destined to go in opposite directions, as soon it will be over.
“And you? Will I see you again”
Before he begins to answer me, or maybe he never does, I am being elevated quickly on wind so powerful my entire body is being sucked upwards. I am being pulled directly into the blades of the fan, and I am sure I will be decapitated, and chopped into tiny pieces. I scream out,”Oh save me. Save me please” and he answers me by whispering in my ear,
“You are being auditioned for a ballet. Quickly, execute your most graceful pose. It’s part of the reward I told you about.”

I believe in him, and it is all I have to believe in now

I believe him,and it is all I have to believe in now, as my senses tell me it is hopeless and it all ends up there in the blades.
I use all my strength to try to get my awkward limbs to obey my imagery, as I picture myself like a ballerina, one foot on point. Without even understanding how or why, I know nothing bad will now happen to me, and I close my eyes, more out of resignation than terror to look at what comes next. The cloudiness clears, and I see myself as if looking from his eyes. I hold my position on one foot, balancing on the pinnacle of a glass spire, all the world, all the worlds I have seen in all my dreams, spread out in front of me. Oh such beauty is too much for my eyes, and they weep once again, moved beyond what I can sort out with my limited human mind.

He moves up behind me like a fellow dancer

He moves up behind me like a fellow dancer, a partner, he suspends my lifted leg gently in his palm, his arm around my waist, and he says, “Go limp now, I am here. I will catch you and float you.” I do as he asks of me, and I am not afraid, as I fall back slowly into his arms, my legs rising on their own, and before I realize it I am floating in the air, and the colors are holding me up. There is something, pressed against my nose, my immediate reaction is to raise my hand to touch it but he stops me gently but firmly, “No, that must remain in place.” It will fade away on it’s own.”
“What is it I ask?”
“It is giving you air, as we will be going very high and it will connect you to me. It’s not forever, just for awhile and it will fade I promise. Just breathe normally”

“I want you to close your eyes…”

“I want you to close your eyes, and open them when I count to three. It is a surprise, it is the reward I promised you for doing so well, ok? One…Two…Three.”
I open my eyes and I am back in the room where I woke up, but I am upright, yet not standing. I am somehow affixed to a cot or a litter, and I feel him behind me. I know his presence so well. In front is a man holding up the other end. He has a symbol painted on his back in red, but very hard for me to distinguish what it says.
“Are you comfortable? You are Queen of the Ballerinas, so your comfort is important.”
I relax, almost smiling, his voice so close to me, and actually I am comfortable, feeling like I weigh next to nothing. This position is not a strain.
“I am fine really” I answer to reassure him. Is this part of my reward?”
He laughs at me, and says, ” Well, perhaps not the very best part,  for that is coming soon.”

Who is that man holding my litter?

Who is that man holding my litter? I see him rather hazily. Is he real?”
“Yes he is, but I thought you might be more interested in who is holding up this end” and he pinches my cheek in a teasing way as the cot is being lowered to a horizontal position. I look up behind me and I see his face above me. I see him, not clearly, but I sense him more than ever before. It feels like I see him, and what I can’t make out well, I can imagine and fill in. I am drawn to his eyes, so loving and beautiful. Then I look to the right and see the woman’s face, the one who was pink in my deco pink dream and blew me off to dance and be glorious with just her thoughts.  She is today orange.All is orange, and I am not sure why.
“Have I returned here for something?
“Yes.” is all he says.
There is a bit of maneuvering and I keep feeling dizzy from looking straight up at the ceiling, so I lean a little and only look back up at him, or to my right to see where he is taking me. I forget about the figure in front of me, as he doesn’t seem to speak at all, and I can’t really perceive him, not like I can the one who guides me.

I look up at him again and again

I look up at him again and again. I can’t believe I am really seeing him with my eyes, and also I can’t believe how young he looks. I always sensed him as older and yet his face is that of a young man, or …..like an angel.
“I expected you to be older somehow.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, I sensed you almost as a father.”
He smiles down at me, “Actually I am older much older than I may appear to you. Age is so relative, isn’t it?”
Is the Ballet Diva comfortable? We are going to take a small walk and I want you to enjoy it.”
This makes me laugh, his name for me, as I don’t believe I am that good of a dancer, surely not a diva, but I am smiling, “Yes I am enjoying this walk and talk more than you can know.”

I crane my neck a little and see the colored clouds

I crane my neck a little and see the colored clouds that took me home from the deco pink dream, and I feel us heading into them,
“Oh no, don’t tell me this is almost over. Please don’t. This is my last dream and it’s so short.”
“Such a bad habit of yours, tsk tsk, always jumping to conclusions. Try to tell me I am not right about that. The dream is too short, I am too young,” he jokes, “What else can be wrong?”
I am back at ease, “I know, I do that. It’s just a bad habit, I am trying to correct. I am the passenger so, wherever you think a ballet diva would enjoy going, I trust your judgment.”
“Thank you for that,” he says smiling.

We walk for a long time it seems to me

We walk for a long time it seems to me, and then we enter a room I remember so well. It was my first dream that I took, the first potion, red and it awakened me to touch and to feeling alive in my body. I almost feel nostalgic, and remember how I wished he would come out from the curtain I felt he was hiding behind and lay with me all night in my bed. He blows his breath across my hair,
“How frightened you were and yet how willing.” I am very pleased to have shared this time with you.

I hear the gentle waves lapping

Then as if we transported in some form without walking, I hear the gentle waves lapping the sides of a ship, and the sun is very bright, and I look down upon the ship of white dreams.
He sets the cot on two railings, and with his now free hands, he cradles my face, smooths, my hair , the unruly curls that fall over my eyes and he says, “You made a beautiful Sea Snake. I have never seen a lovelier one.” We both laugh and he bends over me and kisses my forehead. “Agreed.? Not a lovelier serpent in any ocean on any world.”
I am smiling, feeling the warmth of the light on my face and his lips pressed to my forehead, remembering this journey so fondly.
“Thank you for letting me be that snake, and for bringing me back to remember it.”

“…we pass through patterns of color…”

We walk again, what seems to be many minutes, and we pass through patterns of color, and sounds that whistle like gentle wind in my ears. Then I see we are at the spot where I had my saddest experience, perhaps the deepest, as I felt the dying all around me and was helpless to stop it.
I shudder and feel nervous, but he rests a hand over me, places it on my heart and says to me
“Shhh, this dream is over now…just let it go. Even in it’s shocking effect, it brought out all of your compassion, and you have so much of that.” I am very proud to know you” I reach my face up towards him, and he kisses it. I am crying. I can’t help myself, not over the dead creatures, but because I am beginning to feel he really loves me.

I recognize the boulevard and the couch

We transport again, and I recognize the boulevard and the couch where my deco pink dream of dance began. I remember his words, “Dance and be Glorious” I truly did. This was one of the most rewarding of my dreams, like a living fantasy, I communicated, danced, and left this world behind. I left all the worlds behind. I reach back to touch his hand,
“I will never forget the moment you joined our dance, and we were all one voice. Thank you. Thank you.”

“…I see we are stopped in front of the beetles…

We begin to fly up, higher and higher and I see we are stopped in front of the beetles, the ones that caused me so much anguish. I look up at him, questionably, “Why are we here?”
“Well, I thought you might like to look at them in bright sunlight, as they are quite beautiful, but really I bring you here to tell you, that your reward is to be set free, not like them, that are preserved for some future time. They will stay here forever suspended, inanimate, yet to some degree conscious. I would not like that for you,” he touches my shoulder, rubbing it soothingly, “I want to see you soar.”
“You are so very beautiful. I know you think you have never touched me, but you have.”

I notice I am no longer on the cot

I notice I am no longer on the cot, and I don’t feel him or see him behind me. I gasp for air, and panic begins to set in, “Help me,” I cry out in terror. I’m afraid. I can’t breathe.”
“Ahh but you can, I gave you the tube, breathe through it gently, and let your heart calm itself again.”
“Karima, trust me. Trust me more than ever today.”
“I trust you…always.”

I feel my skirt being loosened

I feel my skirt being loosened, and his hands pulling it off over my legs. The colors swirl and swaddle me in heat and the heat turns to peace, from my feet up to my head. “Oh what a wonderful sensation, my nerves in my entire body are slowly moving into a uniform tranquility as I float in the colored clouds, that one time took me all the way home.
“Are we going home now?”
“Not quite yet. One more hike left, and we must climb, and your skirt will not help you fly”
“Karima, you are doing so well. I think I will call you my good girl.”
I smile, because I have always loved it when he calls me that.

“How are you feeling? He asks me.”

“How are you feeling?”
He asks me, as we start to move again, across what appears to be a plaza, and begin to climb some stairs. I am feeling in total surrender. The fear, and the lack of oxygen have all subsided, and now I just lay limply on the cot, not like a queen but like a satisfied woman, who has just been shown a small inkling of what the power of paradise might feel if it glowed inside of her.
“Take me wherever you want to. I know you do this for love, and only for love.”

We climb many stairs…

We climb many stairs and the burnt -orange glow of the carved ceilings, remind me of a sunset and I tell him so. “If I close my eyes, I am at a beach, and the late afternoon sun, glows over my eyelids”
“You describe it well, I bet you painted many sunsets in your time.”
“Why do you think that?” I ask
“Well, because you are an artist.” and he smiles down at me
“I am?”
He nods and tenderly kisses me on the cheek, I feel his breath on my hair, sweet and warm.

We are outside now…

We are outside now and the bright sunlight of early afternoon washes over my face and makes me close my eyes. We are climbing higher and higher, but I do not feel afraid.
“Am I a good artist?” I ask sincerely wanting to know.
“Oh yes, you are a wonderful one. I love your art” then he hesitates and says, “I love you”

“You love me?”

 “You love me?
I look up into his beautiful eyes. His face changes from young to old, his eyes change color too, all the colors mixed up, in all the beautiful combinations these worlds can imagine. I am feeling so overwhelmed, and yet I do not cry, I feel almost too much to shed a drop of it in a tear. I hold it all inside of me, and I swoon, like I am speeding down a roller coaster. I can hardly believe what I am hearing.
“Yes Karima. I love you. Why is that so hard to believe? I have always loved you. Always.”

We are almost at the top

“We are almost at the top and we will do one last dance, and then I want you to fly when I tell you.
Will you do that for me?”
“Yes of course, but….is this dream over with now?”
I am feeling the twinge of saying goodbye sooner than I am ready to.
“Please, just tell me… will I ever see you again?”
My eyes begin to mist slightly but not spill over.
He strokes my face and then stops at the very top. We are once more where the fan sucked me up, where he told me I was to be auditioned for a great ballet.
He leans over and he whispers to me,
“I know we will see each other again. I know it with all my heart. I trust my heart and it tells me we will”
“Then I trust your heart too… because I love you”

“May I have the next dance?”

“May I have the next dance?”
He is no longer the young man who carried me, but he appears to me again, like my wise guide and companion for all the years I can recall. I can’t remember a life without him, and I say,
“Well yes, I would be honored to dance with you.”
Below us stretches out the worlds of all the colors. I had no idea they were joined, but it does make sense to me too that they are. Everything seems to make sense now and I glide safely in his arms. Even if this dream ends… there are others, and I too know I will see him again.

“Thank you beautiful soul for this dance.”

“Thank you beautiful soul for this dance.” He kisses me so deeply on my lips, and I return his kiss with all my feeling and all my love and gratitude.
“I am going to let you fly now, like we practiced so many times.”.
“You must do it on your own. I can’t come with you.
Just listen to my voice and exactly when I say *Three* fly my beautiful girl. Fly majestically”.

“One”

“One”….. I take a deep breath, he is no longer with me.

“Two”

“Two”……I silently say, “Thank you.”

“Three”

Voice 1. “Time of death 3pm
Voice 2. “Why did it take so long?”
Voice 3. “Yes I thought it would happen instantly when they turned off the ventilator”
Voice 1. “No, even in a patient in her state of coma, it is a process.”
Voice 4. “Do you think she suffered? I really can’t stand to think of that,” she sobs.
Voice 1. “No she did not. We administer morphine before ventilator withdrawal and in case of agitation we also administer phenobarbital.

“When can we see her?”

Voice 2 “When can we see her?”
Voice 1 “We are preparing the body now and soon it can be released to you.”
Voice 4. “Oh My God. I hope we did the right thing?
Voice 1 “Well if it is any comfort to you all, on both scales we use to determine severity of coma, she scored 3 in eye opening response, verbal response, motor response. This is as deep a coma as I have ever seen here.  She has been this way two years without showing signs of improvement.
Voice 2. “Yes and had she lived, awakened, she would most likely be blind. What kind of life is that for an artist. to never see another color-filled day?”
Voice 2. “It was for the best”
Voice 3. “Yes, she never recognized any of us again”
Voice 4. “Not even me,” she breaks down crying again, “her twin sister.. I mean I just thought maybe I could get through. I don’t want to see her now. I just can’t”

I feel weightless as I soar

 I feel weightless as I soar. I am beyond the clutches of gravity, beyond fear and pain. I want to fly everywhere, and see everything. The breeze catches me just right, and my clothes begin to fall from my body, the tube he gave me is no longer attached to me, nothing attaches me…..I fly and I am glorious…

The End

Karima Hoisan
April 25, 2011
© 2011 all rights reserved


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