[Lubesh]

*1000 WC – 1506 and edit grew to 1776 with legs that grew tired of sense.


Death ended for me just as slow life of death was about to become real. The slow sinking of past embellished by a sad but timely happening further on from my life here in what I called the not too distant raining Sky of Tears…here inside her beautiful head

It was nearing – the last chance for her and me. I was ready and likely to succeed as his tears formed without much prodding these days let alone she would be gone from him soon and forever. The only gamble was would he open his eyes at all and which way the water flowed, if at all. With luck his life hadn’t changed and soon the dam would burst and I would be in. As she opened her eye to gaze up at him I was thrust out breathing the very air he breathed, warm and gentle under the sobs that followed as she touched his hands.

As if he sensed me, his eyelids flickered against me though I was invisible to him. As a gasp of forgotten euphoria surged through me, I pushed past veins laying gently beneath the surface of black, lifeless eyes with the lost legs of a new born infant and hung on ready to brace this day…the first day of the rest of my life. Or should I say my first day inside this life.

A strange reluctance surprised me when I hesitated. I thought it strange how familiar the half hearted vibrations that came upon me in this place of darkness were still pleasantly light enough to remember, but became increasingly difficult for me to navigate as I furthered my acquaintance with him. In my mind, the tunnelled view of my ‘safety chord’ tagged along with me. A remnant of a dream? Either way, this pulling, yet yielding constant reminder was to me highly symbolic in its origin. I soon grow too weak to ponder just now as memories of mine, I suppose and his, clash briefly down this vortex of colour and shards of emotion, made very sharp lest I should grow beyond and even cut the umbilical chord one day and reach to touch. Interesting term, but it fits, I am weary, so I know she is and I am on a mission, which halts a further ‘why?’

A faint trail of vapour in harmonised voices squeezed past me as I progressed. Loosening connections disrupt one conversation… “As we are taught, and before disrobing of those teachings, a middle ground is tread upon and many new faces are seen and explored…by most. Yes, you feel cheated son.” I feel cheated as I share briefly the pain and minute particles afloat of his anguish and not gladdened at all as I assumed I would be, for some reason. I gradually sensed from the stark sterility of this place inside of him, that loose connections had been a part of it all and only one real parallel to be found in the me now here, was that of my own naked form. I had been here long before at some point in his existence. I presumed much with no real substance to help me. After wrestling briefly I carried on knowing, as was promised, I too would be rewarded, fed and clothed with a hope, a stretch of breath in this new ‘time’ - maybe, maybe not. Maybe I was meant to join, somehow warm his cold and wretched naked vulnerability forever. Did ‘he’ ever have good ‘times’?

As I made my way, the chord spoke a strange but familiar truth. It is there indeed for good reason and who am I to argue. I feel less compelled to touch, seize and explore any of the frail and flimsy sights I have passed. The discontentment now passing over to me feels even less like wanting to belong to me as it did him, yet it did somehow, eventually. How did I know that? Another comes quickly, in the form of a detached ache. I shrug it off, after all this is not what I signed up for.


I feel boosted by clear warmth emanating from a plethora of overwhelming emotions and they were, I sensed, not too far away. Encouraged, I can nearly feel the hope and maybe the reward?

Then through the pure light and clarity that I am I finally understood. She knew what she was doing when she chose to use me.

As I spread further, fragments swirled around, as if playing with me. The day they met, I remembered now. I first saw him then as I waited in my own dark place. Her eyes caught something, felt something, something so deep she knew then she would never be able to let go. In time as one, they shared and loved on many levels, but many remained impenetrable. Despite the heavy curtains that blocked out the sun and life and her, the woman he loved fought to love so intensely, she knew somewhere she had a place, a right to be and if it took till her death and beyond she would get to that place to be with him eventually no matter how long he took to get there himself.

A last memory before my time here shot to me. She was looking into his sad, black, lifeless eyes…but more than that, she saw his soul, it had a sparkle that could always hold her and feel her, but could never and would never see her, perhaps.

Their near silent, tender, heat wrenching goodbye was my time and her last chance to hang on to the connections made so vivid even through the eyes of a blind and already deeply troubled man. She had found a way to remain in is heart, his mind and soul till one day he would join her –forever.

Before I could digest what I was trying to fathom at this moment, I realised that the warmth had quickly evaporated. It led me here and left me with wall after wall all lined with books. Most half full, half empty, some torn and disowned and strewn about the stairs that went nowhere, imprisoned by a thick ceiling, which subdued a hazy cloud of dreams and unspoken words that kept their buoyancy despite the heavy load that threatened atop of them.

Puzzles interlocked and broken vied for space among missing and lost pieces floating around too elusive to grasp. Out of reach were all parts of a picture or story yet to be finished or even started. Half felt dreams and nightmares sentenced to be nothing but a scattered chaos.

Patterns, haphazard, some precise but mostly methodical collided with lines and boundaries, all once capable of flexibility but when they met somewhere all intricacies were lost or broken.

Further complexities lay at a door amazingly open but all hope had by then escaped into the seemingly endless corridors that inched for miles behind it. Infinity echoed back at me as I was hit by the devastation of the intensity of ithe corridor's pitch-black heart. It took all my strength but I was deflected, buffered by an onyx slab that thwarted my attempts to be. Warped glass dismissed any notions here of an end to all this and beginning of hope or to be able to see anything ever again.

He used to shut her out, fearful she be caught up in a labyrinth that kept him prisoner for the many years she loved him and he in turn worshipped her, until she now, fighting at death’s door, found a way in.

I felt her hurt deeply as her sadness grew stronger as she grew weaker. I knew the reward was near, I could hear her heart break deep inside him here; volatile echoes struck at me like an army of one thousand as they came marching through. Welcome assistance, the power I lacked, dispersed within my centre and I knew then I could not be beaten. With this impetus I fused into his bleak torment and shadowing grief as I burst into a million atoms that ricochet off worthless glass mirrors now bearing cracks and blemishes that spread across the clinging, dingy heavy ceilings. In a deluge they brought down to the floor those dreams and visions and hopes and emotions lost for so long up there.

The books came crashing from their ivory towers to once again lie in easy reach. Released from them were ideas now breathing, pictures and stories eagerly began to wake, to stretch and breathe. Places he had been, people he had met and loved the story of a life that once belonged to him when he could not only see but hope and dream and love in the dark or sunlight of his mind.

Realisation in pieces cascaded like a heavy rain, but it was a cooling rain, a calming restorative storm. They settled on the onyx floor forming a kaleidoscope of colours that clung. Gradually they melded and bridged the gaps, creating new and exciting intricate puzzles and problems worth solving…worth hanging onto. They burned like acid the riddles and confusion and darkness that his life, his love his hope, his losses had thrived in. In just one moment all was calm; it filled the once chaotic and frenzied chasms with her and her alone. I began to fade fast as I felt my reward was more than a glimmer. I could almost touch it; her love, her hope, her clarity, her perception and her light which clothed my own and by doing that, his.

I felt a peace as the promise kept was ignited as soon as her gentle hands touched his eyes now bathed in tears. With her very last breath of ‘I love you,’ I steadied myself and waited. His sobs nudged the last remnants of acrid dust inside and his eyelids opened. As they did, and as his heart exploded with the vision he held in arms full to bursting with another self; that part of him he had lost many years before, I was thrust out and filtered back into the tranquil and serene eyes that had for many years held enough of his love, of his hope and his dreams and life. She smiled her smile before dying but after she saw him for the very first time…whole, loving, loved and above all content.

[RENA HANDS]

Is there a missed period in the first paragraph?

Your third paragraph seems incomplete at least choppy. His light and invisible eyelids flickered against what?

Maybe…A last memory before time here (shoots) me.?

Or…A last memory before my time here eludes/evades me.?

Your seventh paragraph from the bottom needs to be spaced with the previous paragraph.

The third from the bottom seems repetitive. I think there’s another way to rewrite leaving your original idea.

First, loved the little bit about informing the readers that the original 1000 has exceeded to 1776. It’s something that I would do…lol

Second, I understand that u started this write late last night and perhaps tweaked it a bit this early morning…I mention this only because u are like myself repeating when it is not necessary to do so.

Third…is this about a woman, possibly a wife or mistress who has died looking in on her lost love?

Regardless, a very fascinating tale of love, loss, death, hope and all that other mushy stuff involved with the finding and losing of love, again. A rating of 4/5!

[Jimbalaya]

I don't know, Lu. To me it kind of read like a shattered mirror, or a puzzle...

There are some nice scenes in there, and your words, jeez...the way you use words is amazing. It's like you pull the absolute most out of ever sentence, stuff it as full as you can and then zip the lid closed. Each paragraph came out in a wonderfully packed chunck full of many, many descriptives.

It was interesting to read, but it's hard to understand. I'm not sure what the story was about. I read it through twice and got the same affect. Was it intentional or am I an imbicile?

Regardless, it is always a pleasure to read your stuff because of the way you write, the words you use, the way you tie the sentences together. I really can't get over that aspect of it.

[Lubesh]

Originally Posted by Jimbalaya

I don't know, Lu. To me it kind of read like a shattered mirror, or a puzzle...

There are some nice scenes in there, and your words, jeez...the way you use words is amazing. It's like you pull the absolute most out of ever sentence, stuff it as full as you can and then zip the lid closed. Each paragraph came out in a wonderfully packed chunck full of many, many descriptives.

It was interesting to read, but it's hard to understand. I'm not sure what the story was about. I read it through twice and got the same affect. Was it intentional or am I an imbicile?

Regardless, it is always a pleasure to read your stuff because of the way you write, the words you use, the way you tie the sentences together. I really can't get over that aspect of it.

Thanks firstly for reading it anyway Jim. I love when you do my stuff cos I know ur appetite and genuine interest and purpose in ur reads. Even though it does ur head in, my stuff lol And, not your fault always - I will keep saying that.

The only intention was to maintain a theme of puzzle cos of the puzzled chaos that was found to be him. But by that I think the story has suffered. I have to remind myself as am new to it all relatively, that although I have it in my head and see it clearly, I forget or don’t do what ur meant to ..make it accessible for any reader, lost in creating the words, chunks and sentences hence that 'brick wall', so that isn't always a good thing that I can/do. In time I will get there - tone it and remember the plot - above all.

The story is about dying women who for years had the love to an extent of a blind man. She craved the bit he could not, would not let her see. His mind was a mess due to this disability. Only on her death bed she found a way as she said she would to stay there forever (with him) by releasing her 'light' that thing /energy maybe some say we possess on death...before it dissipated....it was the voice in this.(and the object ona journey after another lfie/time somewhere else after death re the prompt. It got in looked around and stayed....she died but before that, mission accomplished -he knew what she meant and trusted /believed how she had always felt about him and this blind man without the wrangling of his nut the problems which were beaten away by her(light)saw her for the first time..Ironcially problems were solved and sight resorted but she died.

She gave him something and she got her wish and made more of a point to her dying, which is irrelevant to the plot but made more sense of dying /death.


There. Two stories for the price of one. There has to be an easier way of doing this...and I don't know why you lot do it lol But you all do and it spurs me.....we have not one crappy fiction writer on this site!

[Brensew]

I agree Lubesh, your word-craft is excellent. I very much enjoyed this story, especially after reading your "puzzle" description. Its very dream like in a sense, one you have to piece together after waking. it is defiantly not an easy read, but I like that about it. Its like a puzzle that sits on your coffee for days and days, only coming together after sufficient study. Perhaps if you provided the reader with some anchor points, some "obvious pieces," the story will come together a little more. But still, bravo. Far beyond my capabilities. Love this part...

"With this impetus I fused into his bleak torment and shadowing grief as I burst into a million atoms that ricochet off worthless glass mirrors now bearing cracks and blemishes that spread across the clinging, dingy heavy ceilings. In a deluge they brought down to the floor those dreams and visions and hopes and emotions lost for so long up there. "

[Lubesh]

Thank you very much for that. Again as with some peotry I am loathe to decipher i write for me firstly..but as said have to refine it make it accessible wihtout a cost. some days i end up accidentally a plus of my learning, and chaotic writing sometimes, which is good also. But happy it served also as food before i do..take that next leap.