{ When one despairs in the City of Dreams, in the City of Fire, the only peace that can be found is drawn from the gilded pipe of a hookah or licked from the bottom of a bottle. Freedom comes to those who walk between, their heavy-lidded gazes lifted to the stars in search of ways of fulfillment . Eagerly, they seek, divining portents in a haze of want and desire, fear and hope. Love. }

The colours were astonishing, enthralling! Every shade of indigo, emerald, violet, burgundy and orange that I could imagine, or couldn’t. All these streaked through with white, with wisps of things that were clouds but weren’t, little veils of absent darkness that chased me in playful twists and spins. That wreathed me as I inhaled the effervescent joy that surrounded me - that filled me. Laughter bubbled forth like spilled champagne as I fell, arms out to embrace any who would welcome the touch of a lost.

Lost.....

Reality crashes down upon me in metal jaws. Reality, or is it not? Grinding, the sharp grate of bone in jaw and teeth in cheek; bittersweet is the salty tang of voidcopper blood. My cry is lost in the echo of laughter as a few fleeting butterflies flit by on carefree wings. Their gamine faces mock me as they drift into a haze of all that was, one pausing to blow smoke into my gaping mouth. Chill creeps in on spidery fingers, an icy caress up my spine as soft lips press to my ear while blooming stars fill my eyes. “So in fiery house, shame forth put when Moths fly, when the sky falls into the pit of the beast’s stomach.”

Grasping these incomprehensible murmurs, I hold on tightly as my eyes squeeze shut. I gasp, my lips falling open and slamming closed in the helpless way of a fish as it tries to breathe oxygen; as it drowns in it. Familiar faces swim through my thoughts, some mocking, others solemn, a man with lips pursed to kiss as another rises behind him with a silver-bright dagger lifted high.

Then all falls still. All is quiet.

Flickering light echoes across my eyelids, but I am still afraid to open them. I am paralyzed by fear. A sweet tune resounds around me, a familiar hum of bow along string. “Open your eyes...” He sings, His voice both beautiful and heartrending and laced with unidentifiable sounds, of hissing. “Look and see, my pretty mirage, for I have much to show you; Open your eyes….Open. Open.” The bow screeches now, clawing its way down the violin’s throat like a lizard swallowed whole.

“Open,” He croons.

My eyelids peel apart - with their opening a fragment of my soul released, this piece of me strung along as if that sole act were the key to my unmaking. In this moment I know everything, the empty space within me filled in one slow slither of essence that has me reeling. Dizzy, I fumble and grasp, reaching to find veils that fall upon me each time my frantic fingers lash out. A husky chuckle, a terrifying chuckle, chases me as I scrabble for purchase on what I know as reality. It is gone. 

Contentment then roils through me like a purr, released in the softest, most satisfied breath ever exhaled. I blink and close my eyes again, feeling myself relax. Nightmares loom, beasts, all hungry, crawling into my conscious thoughts with low growls. Then, pleasure, OH what painful pleasure! Wave after wave of ecstasy engulfs me, these forceful manifestations cresting at the centre of my being and ripping my lust from me. There is no leisurely seduction. Contorting, I twist upon myself, panting and caught between pleading for it to stop and begging for it to never end.

An ebon sea of sand crashes into me and I sink, exhausted, into the pit of darkly glimmering fathom. It fills my mouth, creeping down my nostrils and esophagus into my lungs. It presses, slowly, patiently, into a mould around my limbs as the inexorable weight of it seals my eyes. Replete, tourmented, I lie there, the stars in my field of vision reverting, fading to black pinpricks of void in a wash of white.