Coma
I must have wrote this years ago… but I thought I might share it up here with you lovely folks. Why not, eh? It started off as a descriptive exercise; an attempt to practise some in depth detail but it grew on me and I built on it. I doubt I’ll go back to it, but I want to share it :)
First Visit
“I walk into the small tear through the fabric of time. With a dull thud and a small disturbance of leaves, I fell into a large pile of the fallen foliage.
Once again, I have found my world.
Picking my way through the carpet of tree debris I walk carefully in my high heels, taking care not to stumble or step on anything alive. I find my way towards the cottage and what sits inside.
I know no-one can hurt me here.”
“There is too much to do at the moment so I settle with opening the door and clambering over the threshold. The whole house smells of dust and a stray leaf followed me with the draught.
It’s so quiet. I guess no-one else is here right now. I must be the only person here who knows this place exists and I guess no-one else can get here without me.
Perhaps someone will follow me and live here with me but not right now.
There is far too much to do right now. Dust splutters through every room so I venture upstairs to check the layout. My black dress is dusted grey by stirred grey flecks as I take clicking steps up the linoleum stairs. I have no idea what colour they were once meant to be.
The upstairs corridor is deathly quiet and the twilight seeps through the dust like a misty orange haze. I shiver. The house is cold from lack of life but something is alive here, it just needs to be awoken.”
< The first bedroom door I open is a reflection of pastel blue. The lilac wallpaper reflects the last light of the day shining through the window. This room seems dormant but not eerie. There is nothing eerie about this place. There is too much heavy time where nothing will change.
I look around and see many dusty ornaments. Dry and broken spider webs cling across the ceiling like faded rainbows. I can’t see any spiders but the pallid atmosphere the room portrays is oddly comforting. I walk further in snapping a few hanging webs but they are vacant, no spiders to call them home.
The bed however hosts something I have never seen before.
Dormant indeed, lays the stillest human I have ever seen, if I can call her human. No, him…if I can call him human. It’s a rough guess but this pale being lying in living sleep on this bed must have been here a while. I weakly lift an arm to stroke his dusted face so tenderly. The paleness is his skin, there is no dust. His white-blue dress is not creased despite however long he must have spent here. Resisting the urge to kiss his cheek I take another glance around the room. So much blue.
And dried flowers.
Hanging from all corners of the room are dried roses, dried lavender, cornflowers, pansies, violets… all dried and all either violet or blue. The pansies smile sleepily down from hanging baskets as I back out of the room.
I run home. Like I said…there is simply too much for one visit.”
Second Visit
< Today the sky is orange with the sunrise. My eyes nip with the light. It’s dark on the Earth right now and I’m here because I ran away from the Earth for a little time. I want to explore the house with the sleeping blue man in it. I’m distracted momentarily by a small hill that screams through the ringing silence for me to follow the path.
Although shrouded by leaves and forest debris I scuff my shoes against the dustiness and walk along to the top of the hill. A slight breeze tickles my dress and it flaps in fits of giggles. I don’t care, there is no-one here to see my underwear anyway.
There is a wooden swing dangling from a lone tree at the top of the hill which looks over onto the sunrise. I can only gasp as the oranges and yellows from the sky are reversed and flipped back onto the ground. I can feel the warmth through my furry black coat and remove it, tossing it down beside the tree. I step over to the swing and test my weight. The rope tightens audibly but doesn’t yield and I set myself down, resisting the urge to kick my feet.
< I am alone in this world, but it is a different, serene calming oneness. I’m not afraid to be alone here. The sun heats up my bare arms, the hairs on my arms prickle up and I resist the urge to sleep. I might not wake up if the boy in blue is anything to go by. But then, I’m not sure if that is such a bad thing. I reposition myself upon the ground and curl up under my coat ready to doze. My eyes close sleepily and I yawn loudly. I try to sleep but a voice whispers softly into my ear.
“Not yet.”
Startled but not afraid I sit up. Nothing. There is no-one there despite it all. I couldn’t however, shake the feeling that something was happing here I was aware of. Since I had first arrived, things were starting to happen, life awakening. I wondered if I had something to do with this….”
Third Visit
“The third visit to the world saw me revisiting the man in the bed. It was dark in your world when I left it to come here but this one is daylight. Tiptoeing up the dusty staircase into the echoing room reflected with sky blue, I almost feel dizzy with the lightness of the air. The room hasn’t changed since the last time I’d been there and I run my finger along the thin crumbling wallpaper. The figure hasn’t moved from the way he was laying so peacefully beneath the quilt, the same light stains were visible when I moved the paintings on the wall.
I begin to wonder how long it’d been like this.
The first frame holds a pastel coloured painting. There is a small boy, in dungarees waving to a coal black train that almost leaps out of the picture. Small blue cornflowers, like the ones in the hanging baskets by the windows, decorate the fields along with yawning yellow daffodils in the opposite corner.
The second picture is an oil painting of a girl in a stable with her horse gently nuzzling her hand. He is a young colt with a cold black colour. Yet more blue flowers surround the scene in any way they possibly can.
The third picture is the most interesting of them all. The scene is a meadow filled with forget-me-nots and daisies. It is empty save for a few black rabbits and at the bottom of the picture the beginnings of a small mysterious forest. This is another oil pastel painting and the edges seem hazy. It is odd how like the view from outside the window of the bedroom this picture is.
I take a few steps towards the window and glance out. The similarities were uncanny save that this forest is stuck in autumn and no rabbits danced in this forest, the rabbits here seem dazed, as though whacked over the head by a metaphorical spade.
I brush my finger along the windowsill. It is coated with dust but still had an almost iridescent glow that radiated from it.
I wiped my finger against my cotton pyjamas. They are red with penguins on them, technically my Christmas jammies but I often wore them anyway when it was cold. Now they have a small grey mark on one leg but with the amount of dust I had stood on in my bare feet that seemed inconsequential.
Finished with the rest of the room, I now turn my attention to the unconscious figure. He hasn’t budged an inch since the last time and I could swear that this was the first time in a few weeks I had returned to the forest. Didn’t he eat? Didn’t he need to go to the bathroom? I half expect to find the sheets had turned to cardboard if I try to lift them but stifle a giggle at the thought. It seems wrong to disturb the silence or wake up this life form, not that I feel I could even if I wanted to.
I sit down on the bed, trying my hardest not to sit on any trailing part, any arm or foot and brushed my hand along the figure’s cheek for the second time. He is so like a doll, a living doll trapped in this body that almost seemed like it didn’t want to move.
An odd thought occurs to me.
What if this place is a dream? What if this sleeping doll had dreamt up this place and lost his soul to it? What if, by living here alone he has turned in on himself and, having only himself to talk to, found his life slowly withering away. What if you couldn’t die here? What if these were only dreams? And you can’t die in your own dreams. But could I? Since this wasn’t my dream, this was someone else’s dream, would I die?
I try not to laugh yet again, who even said this was a dream? Perhaps I am merely thinking too much again, I have a habit of that.
“How long have you been alone like this?” I whisper to Sleeping Beauty but he says nothing in return. I wonder if I can revive this world, and in turn, breathe life back into this wonderful, artistic human who created this 3D, physical world and receded into a shell.
I find my way out of the room in silence. If he wakes now, I don’t know how I’d re-act. How does one react to the creator of a world? Particularly a perfect world, so devoid of wasteful humans…
I run back into the forest and will myself back to your world despite how much I’d rather stay here, I mustn’t give away the game too early. I will slowly ease myself into this world; it is far more inviting than my own. I wonder if I could bring a friend…”
The outside is light. I wonder how long I have been here….
Fourth Visit
A week later I come back. I was afraid to make it a too frequent thing in case I found myself trapped within, which, although a seemingly promising concept, is slightly scary this early in. I don’t want to risk my chances and find myself trapped before I have fully scoped the place and the surrounding areas.
I don’t go into the house but instead, I walk around the gardens, I am looking for inspiration for a novel for English Class. This ethereal world has more inspiration hiding within than the so called reality that limits and controls our thoughts and emotions. I am slightly annoyed, as you can tell, with the other reality. This is mostly because I have homework to do. I really don’t do well when it comes to homework. School and home are contrasts. Home is home, not a work place.
Irritated, I walk through a pebbly path along the banks of this chortling river by the side of the house. I can see fish, small gaping things. Perhaps they are startled by the presence of someone human; my attention is drawn to the upper window. The third floor, the second window in: where the figure rests in this perpetual dream.
I can swear something moved, or maybe it is the morning shadows, the darkness from the night slowly starting to drift away.
Yet I can’t help but gape like the fish, unbelieving, as I run into the house, pound my feet against the stairs and, nearly falling, trip into the bedroom. The figure is still in the bed.
I breathe again. Though it would have been wonderful to be able to share this with someone I begin to worry that if he did wake, maybe he wouldn’t want me here. Maybe the years of watching this beautiful world from afar would have him protective of this balance.
I can’t blame him if this is the case. I know I’d be scared someone might destroy this place if I were him.
I return to the fish in the pond. A small koi carp swims past and, carefully I brush my fingers along its fin. A compulsion, yet a silly one, I may have frightened him. The water is cold but fresh, more real than the rest of the world. I note the irony of this place seeming dreamlike…if you think about it, maybe it does make sense.
I draw my fingers out from the cold heavy water before a fish nibbles them, it does look rather hungry.
Climbing to my feet, I wander south along the edge of the water, it leads me through an almost park-like area, the area seems less “dusty” and the air isn’t so airy…does that make sense? The air isn’t heavy and seems more like the air I’m used to. I clear my throat and continue my walk. There is a path, a worn path with prints. Horse prints and tracks, perhaps a horse and cart?
There is a small bench and I make a mental note to bring a picnic for the next visit. The trees here are less cluttered here and give way to a field of fresh blue flowers of all kinds. A field of yellow flowers sits beside it; they are separated by the river and joined by a small stone bridge.
Picking my way carefully around the flowers I find myself on the bridge looking over at the water. It is deeper here and I can just make out pebbles at the bottom as I bend over. The water trickles along its path as I bend over the side of the bridge. It’s relaxing to watch and I note how even larger fish swim past here.
Panicking I look at my iPod. I snuck in here via the girl’s bathroom today. I’m skiving fifth and sixth period as well as staying here during lunch. I have a maximum of three hours but I notice how slowly the time is going. I could have sworn I’d been here about an hour already. It took me half an hour to walk from the house to the bridge, but it didn’t seem long at the time…I’m just guessing, after all, I have no concept of time. I don’t have a watch because I hate watches so instead I’m using my iPod for the time.
My iPod is the only thing here that even resembles something from the other world but I’m not listening to it. I am however, clutching tightly to it.
I have left the path now and go east into the field of yellow flowers thinking about Alice in Wonderland and contemplating whether I would fall down a rabbit hole in my pyjamas, hey, stranger things could happen.
There are no trees in this field and ever seems to become spring and summer as I walk further away from the cottage, the flowers for example are all spring flowers such as the daffodils.
After what I imagine is around twenty minutes I look at my iPod again. Three minutes have past. This can’t be real, maybe my iPod is broken. I put it in my pyjama pocket and continue on my walk.
My feet are starting to hurt. Despite the soft wet grass cushioning each step I have to sit down, accidently crushing a few golden buttercups. It is really sunny here and warm. Warm enough to take a small nap. Just a nap though, because if I am still here when they lock the toilets, I will be in trouble. I’d rather not stay here all through the weekend. I might starve!
Dozing off, I began to worry that I might not wake up, like my friend in the cottage but when I considered it, wouldn’t it be beautiful to sleep forever in the company of a thousand flowers…
~
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