I have recently finished my Bachelors Degree. . . and in an attempt to break beyond the academic mindset - I decided to write this.
I’ve been in this room for two years now. At least . . . at least I think that is how long it has been. The dust seems to build here, only on certain things, though. My eyelids are loaded with it, like they have never moved or rested, not even “just for second” – so much so that my dreams feel dusty, allergenic . . . uncomfortably awake. I blink the particles off my lids and watch their resilience fall softly to the floor. My head creaks and swivels, remembering its left . . . and its right. . . remembering it can shift in its own direction. I finally feel like I am able to look in a circle, rather than straight forward. I blink again and start to focus on the damage. Who lived here in this dry powdered precipitation? The walls around me are full of written implications and therefores, semicolons, formatting . . . and the over anxious word, “imperative” which appeared over, and over, and over again. Who uses that word . . . that much? Anthology’s stacked the room around me, one after the other. They aren’t dusty. They are worn and used like a factory worker’s clothes. The stacks of texts made my eyes go up. . . up. . . up. . . Texts, text - words, words, submit. Submit. Submission. My eyelids began to feel unrested again . . . The mounds of writing sucked me back in. Yet, I believe it was only right after I began to fall into this speculative trance that the door began to knock. Or, rather, was it someone knocking? I came back to again.
She cleanly walked into the room interrupting my confusion. I almost felt ashamed for the dust that was gathering at my feet. Stutteringly apologizing for my dishevelment, I delivered a greeting that resembled the words “I’m . . . I’m sorry for these piles, I think I’m lost. . . Hello?” I delivered a half question, but looked for a whole answer.
She laughed at this. The tall, stunning, polished figure before me, laughed at my piles of tidied disorder.
But then, she said something curious. . . “You are not lost, you are right where you need to be . . . before anything that has happened and after all of your happenings. . . you are directly in the middle of a journey, where you have always been.”
I blinked again and questioned the obviousness of her statement.
“I am going to explain your dust, your rigidness, and your lack of understanding of anything beyond these walls of structure. . . she said, “I am here to remind you of who you are, and why you locked yourself in this room to begin with”.
“I put myself here?” I wondered. . .
She revealed a variety of keys and handed me the largest one first.
I held the over sized brass piece in my hand wondering what great door it could belong to. Yet, just as that thought crossed my mind she instantaneously pointed me to a small cupboard on the wall. The contradiction of key to cupboard size was not lost on me – I noticed these things still. . . contrary and opposing observations still bounced in my head.
The cupboard’s lock took up the totality of the door. “What’s behind this small door, that is so important that it needs such a big lock?” I asked her.
She laughed again and replied “You have the key, why are you asking me?”
I sheepishly realized at that moment She was not the only one with the answers. . . not anymore at least. I heaved the answer to my curiosity toward the lock and twisted. . . twisted. . . twisted. . . sneezing at the dust storm the movement created. The dust had definitely gathered here. Had the door not creaked I would not have realized it opened. I repeatedly blinked the clouds away, standing there half breathless until a glimmer of glass made itself known with a few small sparkles. The dust clearly did not touch whatever was creating this shimmer. Then suddenly, there they were. . . vials. Vials of. . . colored dust? At least at this point I knew hue’s existed past textbook definitions because there they were, in all their exquisite glory. I marveled at their spectacular sight until I realized they were labeled. Words. Labels. Order. I knew these things. My eyelids became a little heavy at the letters. Only, when I began to read them, they flew awake. “Time”, the yellow one read. . . “Patience” for the green, “Sleep” said the blue, “Your full attention” the red exclaimed. . .and each color of the spectrum went on “time with your children”, “love” and “sanity”. I was confused. Why were all of these very heavy labels on such captivating colors?
“Your sacrifices” She whispered.
I jumped at the sound of her voice and goosebumps filled my arms, almost dropping the fragile vials I held.
“You can have them back now. . . if you want them”
I wanted them. But, how can I just have them back? Rather, how could I just take them back? Do I ask? It seemed almost selfish to immediately own these precious things I once, willingly decided to give up. I gently set the vials back, hoisted the large key and locked the very large lock on the very small door. I left the sacrifice alter where it was – afraid that all that was left in the containers was just the color, and not meaning.
“IT IS ONLY MY ROLE” She bellowed “TO OFFER YOU THIS SECOND KEY”.
She shook me out of momentary wallow. I stood in the gray dust again.
I took the rather normal size key and walked to the rather normal size lock on a rather normal size door. Customary to doors that have been opened quite often, it creaked as I pushed it open. I recognized the creak, like I’ve used this door all my life.
Before me stood an old, tall, double paned glass window. One of those kind of windows where someone would say “Do not bang on that window, IT WILL BREAK”.
I looked through the window in a rather Ebenezer Scrooge kind of way, cautiously curious. And there they were. My people. My people without dust. My people behind this fragile glass. A plantation of them. And then, suddenly it wasn’t just the people I saw - but the smell and the feeling of the air. It enveloped me. It danced around my body and soaked in around me. It was cozy, and warm, and known. It was home, but yet, it was my home away from home. It was the creases around welcoming eyes, it was wise words. It was the sounds of laughter, of knowing looks. It was all, well, regular. I must have come here to escape the dust filled room of my brain as it gathered beyond comprehension. I did, I know I did.
Then suddenly, I felt sad, like I was saying goodbye. How could I leave this? I looked back through the window and everything was still ordinary and standard, but it worked without me. I guess I couldn’t blame my people without dust – but it didn’t make the hole that was forming in my heart to appear any less apparent.
I returned solemnly to the room of dust. I expected another key to be placed in my hand. Maybe an answer to why I began this journey to begin with- but all She did was point to the very large door in the back of the room. “That door doesn’t have a lock, it just needs you to open it”. She said it so knowingly, as if some doors don’t need to be protected only reminded about.
I walked over and stood in the shadow of the door’s massive size. Before I could attempt to push this door open She whispered something, almost urgently. “It is imperative”, She said, “that once we transcend this dusty plane, we liberate ourselves from this structure we created. We cannot carry that to the land beyond that door.
“We created?”, I said.
She smirked. I am you, well actually, you are me. “And this”, she said as she pushed open the door (Or maybe it was I that pushed it open), “Is the Land After Furthermore”. This is the land where everything is created.
Curious, I stepped forward and glided through the door letting the weightlessness take control of me. My feet left the ground and the ceiling ceased to exist as I drifted into the atmosphere of the new space. It would make sense that gravity does not exist in the land that is void of the common structural elements I worked so hard to learn.
I floated by the explosions of thought and saw the ideas that were running, sprinting, chasing to their next host. I hovered among the creative neurons that flew through my hollowed body and on to their targeted mind. I saw the eruption that a single inspiration creates. It was more than a sound – it was a volcano of color – of red, of orange, of blue, of yellow . . . bright vivid colors bouncing off blacks, and grays, and whites for balance. There was a dancing of flavor in the sweet reveal of brilliance, coupled with the daunting bitterness of execution. Everything in this space wiggled and leaped and immolated life in its blooming epiphany. This is where dreams start. I was here before. I guess that is the danger of stepping outside of the gravity of your thoughts – you may realize why you started to fly in the first place.
I knew exactly what I was supposed to do. I ran back into the room. I grabbed the far too big key, for the far too little lock. I unlocked it. I grabbed every single vial. Every single variety of luminance and sacrifice. . . and smashed them to the floor. The colors floated around me and exploded in late night laughter, in a waterfall of relaxing glasses of wine, in the strange comfort of boredom, and, interestingly enough, in creative texts and sentences beyond structure. There they were – bringing light to a dingy room. All willing to join me again.
I ran to the very normal sized door and opened it with the very normal sized key. I saw the window, but as I breathlessly looked around, I saw the door. I ran through it - and my people without dust threw their arms open, poured my empty cup, and welcomed me just the same. And all at once, as if a movie was being rewound – I remembered.
It took remembering the spark to understand the finish line. It took remembering the journey to understand this finality. Everything I gave up, every new idea, change of thought, and lingering question danced around me. It was easy, at this point, to believe that there was a land beyond the walls of factual intention that I had built – that forever is never as long as it seems, and is never, actually, forever. I have only existed on a plane of discovery, in every in between moment and between every decision. Everything that was before greeted me afterward . . . everything during – stayed (if I wanted it).
And here I sit intertwined with the serious gray and excitement of color. My heart beating fast, but surprisingly rested. Wondering which one of these ideas are going to fly through the weightlessness of the Land After Furthermore, come through the large unlocked door – and greet me with a new prompt to create. Where will the beginning to this end take me?
