Come out of the fire a star - Day 5

She awoke in a start upon the grassy knoll. The fog was dissipating—the sun was making an appearance. The world quiet again. Students were buzzing around her. There was the noise of the everyday. Soon, the voices became silent. It was time for class.

She touched her aching head and wondered why she didn’t carry Advil with her for moments just like this. She walked slowly, rubbing her temples as she walked. The calming effect of the Bailey’s had worn off. She needed Valium if she needed anything.

Slipping into class, the prof already droning on, she slid into an empty chair in the back row. She began to take notes, to focus her mind on something other than her dream reality.

“Pssst.” She looked up, and found that Kyle Warner was trying to catch her attention. When he got it, he whispered, “a bunch of us are going to check out that grotto tonight, wanna go?”

Grotto? That got her attention. “What grotto?”

Rolling his eyes, he yell-whispered. “Can’t you remember anything?”

“It’s been one of those mornings,” she said.

He rolled his eyes. “It’s not even 9 am!”

Smiling wearily, she asked again: “What grotto?”

“The one in the cliff just off the beach. It’s pretty concealed by blackberry bushes, so no one really knows about it. It gives a damn good view of the ocean. So, you in or not?”

He stared at her intently. She’d always thought he was cute. He seemed to really want her to come.

“I’m in,” she replied.

The rest of the day went by in a haze, not a dreamy haze, but a dull, grey one. She morosely grabbed a coffee in the cantina and walked outside to hopefully clear the cobwebs in her brain. She watched some magpies flutter around in the sky. It was cloudy, but the sun was attempting to outshine them. Her mind was anticipating the grotto. She had a feeling that she must go there. She always trusted her intuition.

“There are caves full of scary secrets,” came a voice, “trespassers place their bets.”

“Oh shut up!” she yelled. People stopped talking, turned and stared. Sheepishly, she tried unsuccessfully to laugh it off. “Damn voices.” No body laughed. She walked quickly away from that crowd.

Since the voices were in her head, she argued with them there. You are no longer welcome. This is my life and I will do with it what I please. And you don’t please me. Never have, never will.

The voice did not respond. Had it retreated?

Another voice spoke to her. “Across the broad continent of a woman’s life falls the shadow of a sword.” This time it was Virginia Woolf. Not like she was one of the voices, Emma just enjoyed reading her work, studied it in English Lit., and understood the torment of her soul. She was not the one to choose tradition. Her wild side, and these voices, denied her that option.

That night she met up with Kyle Warner and some of the others and they made there way up the cliff to the grotto. The whole time she felt a beckoning, and also, with equal feeling, a resistance. She was both compelled and repelled at the same time. Like she was being lured into something she knew was bad for her. Like an addiction.

“This is going to be so rad,” Kyle said. She smiled thoughtfully, but she was a million miles away.

As they entered the cavern hole, she felt a prickly sensation down her back. The darkness over took her as the others with flashlights moved ahead of her. Wait up, she tried to say, but the words were not coming out. She was fully encased in darkness and it was silent. Until she heard that familiar but hideous laugh.

Her legs would no longer move. She felt her body stiffen. Her vocal cords paralyzed, she could not even scream for help from her friends so near. She could barely breathe. It became a conscious effort just to suck air into her lungs. She knew who was standing near her making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up straight, even though she’d tried to shave them off to stave off this reaction.

NO! she heard a voice say. No! You will not defeat me. Not this time loser!

She realized it was her voice speaking. It sounded strong. Self-assured. She looked around in the darkness, her eyes still not adjusting. She could not see her nemesis. She had never seen Lothar, but her eyes scanned the cave intently in the silent blackness. She was ready to fight him this time. She had reached her end. She saw nothing. Not until she saw a faint glimmer of light radiating from a crack in the stone. Light and red velvet.

Come out of the fire a star - Day 4

Amadeus was her oldest voice. She had met him once. In the dark, when she was very young in the orphanage. She didn’t see what he looked like, but she did feel him. He was big and strong and he promised that he would take care of the bad guys for her. And he did. She closed her eyes and prayed for him to come, though it never seemed to work that way.

“Don’t start to cry, butterfly,” the tree nymph said, “I was just playing around.” He must have saw the intense relief in her exhale of breath, as he added “well don’t get too happy about it.” Then he laughed again, louder yet; very strange on the small creature. When he was done laughing, he said in full seriousness “Now it’s time we go.”

"I don't want to go," she said. "Not anywhere with you." She began to struggle again. This time he did not laugh. She did not see his face contort with pain. She did not see him wrestle with something much larger than himself. She did not see the battle raging around her because she was determined to fight him and free herself from his grip.

Suddenly, an intense beam of light blinded her closed eyes. She knew not to open them, the way you would not open your eyes when someone bounces sunlight off a mirror directly in your face. She heard the whishing of something sharp near her ear. She could hear her heartbeat pounding within her chest, the adrenaline coursing through her veins. She opened her eyes and saw a silver sword flashed through the air held by a muscular hand. It was Amadeus. He had come.

Immediately she relaxed. Amadeus was her god, her saviour. She no longer needed to worry when he was there. But always he was a bright light, a feeling of strength and fortitude, but nothing tangible, nothing she could grab hold of and hold for comfort. She felt her eyes grow heavy and she felt herself sinking deep into the earth.

Come out of the fire a star - Day 3

Emma woke in a start on the grass where she had been; the night still starry, but dawn imminent; the ground now moist with dew; she could smell the earth. “Pete,” she uttered quietly to herself. This always happened this way; the truth dangled in front of her like a carrot. Dr. Bendick will say this wasn’t real. It’s real, she thought, and somehow, someway I’m going back.

She decided to tell no one. If she had to fight for herself, she would begin by fighting her way. Silence. No one would know about this. It was not a dream. It was real. She knew this in her heart.

I am a what? She wondered. She had to answer that question herself. That would be another way she fought back.

She went back to her dorm room, getting in just before sunrise. Her roommate was still asleep. She started the little coffee machine in the corner, and relaxed against her bed as she listened to the percolation.

“The devil lives in a cave,” came a new voice. This voice made the hairs on her body stand up. This would be Lothar.

She hated Lothar with a passion more fierce than life itself. She went straight to her bottom desk drawer, got out her morning prescriptions, and grabbed her morning botle of self-medication. Pouring the Bailey's into her coffee cup, she added only a little coffee: for flavour. She pushed him far back to the back of her mind. Regrettably, she had never been able to push him right out. She drank quickly, feelnig stronger, more resolute with every gulp. Why couldn't she have stayed longer with Pete. She wondered if she was in love with him. He was damn gorgeous with his dark hair, long lashes and that velvet coat. SHe had never before liked velvet.

She dared not tell anyone this latest. They'd really think she was crazy then. In love with a voice in her mind, a figment of her imagination that she met in a dream? She grabbed her psychology books and threw on a sweater. Climbing the grassy knoll, she looked out across the peaceful campus, the morning light spillign through the trees, she looked around, actually looked, as if seeing it for the first time. She had never felt like she belonged here. Honestly, she had never felt like she belonged anywhere. She had always wondered if she'd ever find her niche, her "people." Pete had begun to reveal the secrets she so desperately wanted to know.

As she sat on grass, finding her centre, feeling the buzz of the Irish crème warm her being, she felt the wind gently blow against her skin. She hadn’t slept for 3 days and it was getting to her. The voices, the hallucinations, the constant mind rollercoaster—these things had intensified in the last week—she felt like she was on a collision course. She watched a fog rolling in from the distance.

“I’m telling you sweetheart,” Lothar said, “do not trust the shy eye.”

“Leave me the EFF alone!” she said as she jumped up and ran towards and into the thickening fog.

She could not see what was in front of her. It felt exhilarating not knowing what was ahead. She did not even put out her hands in front of her, she simply ran. Straight into a tree. As she felt herself flying backward, strong hands enveloped her, a caress, sweet as a wake up kiss. She flew faster now, swaying as if being rocked in a cradle. She opened her eyes and saw leaves, a net of leaves, she was enmeshed in a leaf hammock.

She began to struggle. Kicking, pushing, pulling, but the vines only tightened around her. Eyes emerged from the green jungle net. She had read about tree nymphs in her literature courses. One had now befriended her.

She calmed down and eventually stopped struggling. The nymph looked at her and she returned the look. It was small and very green and its eyes were like that of a cat. There was an awkward silence.

“Are you going to let me down?” she asked.

“It’ll cost you,” it said, a little lisp in its voice, “one kiss.” Emma’s eyes widened.

“Where?” she was horrified. She did not want to kiss this nymph.

The eyes narrowed into thin slits, then opened wide in laughter which sounded like leaves rustling in a harrowing wind. She felt cold shivers tingle the back of her neck. She longed for Amadeus. He was her warrior.

Come out of the fire a star - Day 2

Shock reached down to her very soul. She was at a loss for words, not surprising considering the situation, but odd for her. He was nothing like she had imagined him to be. In fact, she had never imagined him at all; she could not have imagined a body more beautiful. He reached down to lift her up. Standing, she looked around.

They appeared to be in some sort of grotto. It was pleasant, the atmosphere calm. She could hear a trickle of water, but did not see the source. It was quiet. She looked at him directly into warm brown eyes, framed by long dark eyelashes. “Where are we?”

He smiled shyly and bent his head coyly. He quietly said, “I told you to be careful of the rose.”

He dressed in a thick crimson velvet robe. His dark eyes twinkled with mischief. "Follow me. I will show you my world."

He moved away from the back of the cave towards the light she had not noticed upon her arrival. A large rock caught the light and sparkled with intensity. The flat top was a workspace of some type; a smaller luminous rock held by a dark wooden frame emitted a rainbow of light. She paused. He laughed shyly.

"Your people wear these rocks on their fingers. We have more practical uses for them."


She became transfixed with the brilliance. Pete took a seat on the diamond chair before the diamond table flinging his robe behind him, still not wearing anything else. Light emanated around him. “Please have a seat, Fair Emma.” He motioned to a similar diamond chair directly across from him on the other side of the table. She sat down.

He smiled at her and then out of thin air produced a large book upon the table and started flipping through it, “hmmm, now where should we start?”

“Start?” she heard herself say, not wanting to break the dreamlike state with the sound of her voice.

“To commence, to embark, to begin, however we do not have to begin at the beginning. You are on a journey which you do not yet understand. You will find peace. But you must fight for it. It will come. But it is elusive. You are in a great battle. You must remember that you have a warrior spirit. You cannot retreat or withdraw. That will be your defeat.

“I will tell you what your name means: ‘whole, all-embracing, universal.’ You are whole, no matter what they tell you. You have a wider view of the universe that those around you; that is what makes you different. No longer cling to what they are saying. You must embrace your own kind.”

“My own kind?” she asked hesitantly. It was a lot to process.

“Yes,” he smiled sweetly with a hint of sadness, “you are a….”

Come out of the fire a star - Day 1

“Come out of the fire a star,” whispered the voice in the dark. The night was cold; there were no clouds to keep in the heat. Stars twinkled high above; she looked for satellites crossing the sky, but saw none. Lacing her fingers behind her head, she lay down. The ground was warmer than the air. Mother Earth. She was not alone.

Emma had heard the voices her entire life. She had spent more time with psychiatrists than she had her own family. But she was no longer frightened by the voices; she only wanted to understand them, figure out what they were trying to tell her.

“Beware the smell of the rose.” She liked to call that one Pete.

He was kind… most of the time. He warned her of the imminent dangers that lurked, not only in the periphery of her mind. She turned her head and saw a rose – the colour surprisingly bright in the darkness. The colour of blood, she thought sordidly.

And that’s when it began. This dream-like happening so characteristic of her life. The reason they all called her crazy. She had been trying to explain to her family that these incidents were real. But no one believed her. Not even the psychiatrists. That was what made her feel crazy; when not even the psychoanalysts believed her reality.

She was floating on a red bed and there was on overpowering scent of rose that assaulted her. The bed rippled and billowed below her body and she feared that she might fall off and into oblivion. She tried to grasp the bed, but it was moist and the colour came off on her hands, and then she felt herself sliding, and sliding further. She knew not to scream, not to fight it. She let herself slide, the bed dipping into a narrow cavernous hollow, red sheets surrounded her. There she stopped as her feet got wedged at the bottom, her body crushed. She was stuck in the rose.

She felt a little like Alice. But this was a nightmare, not a wonderland. She knew that she would not see a white rabbit, or a knight. She would not meet the White Queen and she would not get her head chopped off. She closed her eyes, but knew it was no use. When she opened them, she would still be inside the rose. She began to cry. She had had enough of this nightmare reality.

Her tears collected in a pool at the bottom of her feet. She could not stop. That was another of her problems. She was like a dam holding back and once it burst, it flowed like a raging river. The pool rose higher. It reached her knees. She would have laughed if it was funny. She was going to drown in her sorrow. She tried to move her feet. She tried to twist, to push against the petals, but all she achieved was to smear herself in red rose petal – the scent overpowering, the blood on her hands.

She was now fully immersed in her tears. She took a deep breath and held on. She tried to return to the surface, but when she looked up she could only see a far away light. She expected to die; indeed felt the air loss, became lightheaded—but for a helping hand. Out of the inner petals, a smooth pale, glowing hand grabbed her, and pulled her into the petals; she felt a rush of red petals, like a dense, red jungle, a disembodied hand leading her. She allowed herself to be led, dragged like a rag doll. When a clearing was reached, when she spat out the water, she looked up to find herself staring at a beautiful young man, fully nude, staring at her.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I am the one you call Pete.”

Come out of the fire a star - INTRO!

A friend and I have started a writing group and we started a story that will last for one week until our next meeting. We began with the paraphrased quote: "Come out of the fire a star" and we each write 1 to 2 paragraphs and then email it back to the other. We are having a blast and she's agreed that i can post our writing here. SO... I will begin posting the story in daily segments until next Thursday... Remember: it's a quick write: no editing - you just get it down AND it's still in its first stage. SO... sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride!!!

November 11, 2007

REMEMBRANCE DAY

The ghosts are allowed to haunt today. And they do. Never too far distant, today they are invited. And they come. Their smiles bright once more. Their laugher echoing between my ears.

I see their faces, one by one. The lasts. The goodbyes none of us said because we did not know that it was. His smile in the dfac line. His entrance in the field office meaning I called my superior on the radio to come meet with him. The language barrier broken by universal hand signs; he held the sunflower so that I could take its picture; a picture I have not looked at in one full year because he was killed the next day. His encouragement for me to write. His presence on my last convoy out; his kidnapping shortly thereafter.

My first remembrance day with people to remember. My first year anniversary of the week of death - the week we went to sleep each night grieving a death and woke up to learn of another loss to grieve before we'd recovered from the last, as if we could ever recover.

But you do. You suck it up, toughen up, and move on, carry on, pray for mercy, that yours will be quick, and get out when you can.

And it works... for a time. You carry on, but always you carry the memories. And one day a year you are encouraged to remember. As if you've ever forgotten. Except that this day the whole world remembers with you. Or tries to. It's socially acceptable one day a year.

This day is a good thing. But it's also hypocritical. 364 days a year society tells you to forget, to suck it up, to move on and get on with your life. Then one day a year they say: "okay, today you can remember. Let's all remember."

However, they don't know the effects. They'll go to sleep tonight just like usual. They'll wake up just like every other day: drink their coffee and go to work just like normal. The select few will have trouble falling asleep tonight. IF they sleep, they'll nightmare. When they wake up, they'll remember. Because they never forgot. For the select few, everyday is Remembrance Day.

Our memories haunt us.