Not feeling good today, so I went to lay down to take a nap. A last second impulse snatched the rosary from its bag as I passed it in the room. I didn’t realize I had grabbed it until I literally slapped myself in the face with it as I adjusted the eyeshield. (Years of nightshift trained me to equate its presence with deep sleep.)
Too comfortable to put the rosary back on the table. Fine. I’ll just lay it here on the pillow just out of drool reach.
Strange and intrusive dreams followed. An angel with black skin and black feathers, but with gold hair and gold shafts to the feathers was calling me to go with kir. Ke was floating above a precipice, holding kir hand out to me. All I had to do was take it, and we would be off.
To where?
Hell if I know. Ke did. But ke wasn’t saying anything but “Take my hand.”. Sorry broseph, I don’t go with angels I don’t know.
I did my thing that I do to force a dream to end and wake up.
One shifting of my body position and one preemptive strike of a banishing fart later, I was back asleep. I look up to find I’m in a mist filled area. Could be a field. Could be the interior of a gymnasium. Where ever I am, it’s colder than the grave of my fucks and lit half as well.
I can see I’m in my Traveling clothes including the raven-feather cloak. I should be barely more perceptible than the shadows around me. The light sources keep shifting.
Did I say “light sources”? I meant “glowing eyes”.
Hundreds of something appearing as people are surrounding me. They moan about being cold and moan that I am so hot. “Hold me!” The pleading commands develop an aggressive edge the closer they get to me. I flare out the cloak to keep them away from me.
An itty bitty instinct tells me not to let them touch me. These weren’t the usual dead that I retrieve as a Boneburner. These were different. They looked physically weak and unimpressive. But their eyes were orbs of cold blue fire that I knew was what they were really made of. I’ve read enough stories to know that nothing good will come of any contact with these type of dead.
Hungry dead.
More of them crowd around me. It is getting harder to push them all away. A damp and clammy hand grazes mine.
C-c-c-cold!
The uncontrollable shiver that brief touch triggers is enough to give the cloak enough fortitude to push them all back out of arm’s reach again. But now the one that touched me is shrieking for more touching, more warmth, more of what is inside of my skin that it had forgotten it lacked.
But now it remembers.
And it wants all I have to give. Voluntarily or not.
The warmth it took from me is already a memory. One that the others around it tear at greedily. When they have nothing left to steal from each other, they renew their attentions to me. They are angry that one of them got to have some of my warmth, but not all of them. I am no longer surrounded by the Hungry Dead. I am surrounded by the Hungry Angry Dead.
And all my weapons are useless.
Wait. Angry Dead?
I finally realize that I’m dreaming and rip a hole in the fabric of the dream. Slipping through, I jump through several realms to make sure they can’t follow me back to the Waking.
The rosary is still on my pillow where I left it. Just out of arm’s reach. It won’t work if I don’t have faith. If I don’t accept the promise given. Just having it makes it a souvenir. Holding it makes it accepted. Right?
I take the beads (so deceptively light in weight) and wind them several times around my hand. Before I have laid my head back down on the pillow, I am asleep.
Silence abides.
I am alone with only the phantasms created by my ego, my wishes, and my anxieties. I know each of them well and greet them by name (or the name of their source) as they appear.
Gone is the feeling of other things pressing in. I walk to the edge of where I am. Instead of a unfathomable chasm (and an angel waiting to dangle me above it), there is a sea. Water so pure that it steals the color of the sky stretches out before me. I let my senses race the shore and trace the contours.
I am on an island in the middle of a fresh water sea. Population: Me.
I am isolated from things, and given space to rest in comfort and safety.
It is said that nothing can separate the love between mother and child. I know personally the mother’s point of view in that homily.
This is the first time in my 40+ years of life I have seen the point of view as the child.
She kept her promise.
I feel ashamed for doubting her.
I clench my fist and find the rosary has accompanied me. The chain is as light in weight as it is in the Waking. I find that fitting. Everything about her has been one surprise after another.
I walk the shore as my senses catch up with me. It is pleasant here. Relaxing. On the land my worries sort themselves out until even they run out of excuses to manifest.
The scent of water surrounds me. It covers me with a hue of Marian Blue.
I get the rest I needed. A bright shaft of light manifests in the middle of the island. My path back to the Waking. Just as I step into the beam, the name of a Tumblrite comes to mind. I’m sure that person is going to have a laugh at reading this, I’m sure.