Material found in banners above not endorsed by author of this site!   Into Eternity by Joel Doherty At first, the darkness was absolute. Time was, as yet, not functioning and the nothingness that existed did so unto obscurity. But, eventually, time did began to exist, and the emptiness ceased to be a void, and started to swirl slowly into itself. The effect was completely unnoticeable until the blackness faded, much as a shadow does at the approach of the dawn, and was replaced with gray. Actually, many shades of gray, that seemed to have form, yet no distinction. Imperceptibly, the world righted itself, and form took on meaning, and the grayness became mist. The mist was cold. The mist was cold, and wet. It was heavy, and it could be bowled aside by invisible hands attached to invisible arms. But the going was difficult, because the ground, although hidden, was none the less persistent, and each step had to be felt out an inch at a time. The mist was rolling, rolling more into itself than in any one direction, but the general effect was one of complete disorientation. And the going was slow. Hours stretched into days, days stretched into weeks, which became years, which, strangely, became minutes. And seconds forced their way in, politely stretching the decades into no time at all. A cool breath, a whisper, could not be felt, for a whisper breathed throughout all the mist. But there, there was a lack of breath, and no whisper. Travel in that direction was quickly rewarded in the form of a lessening of the mist. And the mist rolled away, like the ghosts of long forgotten guards stepping aside. Or perhaps the shadows of such men. Or the shadows of their souls. But the mist did get lighter, and, in actuality, began to fade away. Finally, arms and hands, and even feet, were no longer just an assumption, but a reality, if only a hazy one. A dark presence could scarcely have made itself felt through such surroundings, but the darkness of something present was readily identifiable. And that something took on shape and form, just as legs and arms became flesh and bone. And the sea of mist opened up to an island of reality. Or, failing that, an island that reflected reality. Clothes that had pushed their way through the mist, while unknown then, became persistently obvious by the fact that they were soaking wet. And that fact made itself aware scant seconds before she did. She was standing beneath the tree that had cast the lack of shadow into the mist. She was the most beautiful creature to ever bless the eyes of those who gazed upon her. Her soft brown hair would have fallen, cascading down her shoulders in shimmering waves if it had been aloud to hang freely. She had it held back, loosely, but neatly in a single braid, which she pulled over one shoulder. Her head was tilted down and her features could not be distinguished. A white dress, that would have been indecently see-through except for its many layers, covered her figure. The billowing white of the garment contrasted with the soft tan of her skin. Nails that seemed to have color all their own finished off perfect fingers, delicate but sure. She was tall, perfectly proportioned, and, above all else, breath taking. She raised her eyes slowly, looking out from under her dark eyelashes, a gentle smile playing about her mouth. And her lips were red without lipstick, and her skin was flawless . And her eyes. Her eyes were deeper than the oceans, the color of the sea during a storm, with the edges bordered in the green that can only be glimpsed in a breaking wave. To be lost in those eyes was to have all wishes come true. Shock rippled like a clap of thunder in a stone canyon, echoing and cracking from reality into a dream that was. He sat bolt upright in bed. Reality settled slowly around him, the mists disappearing, the familiar forms of his dresser and night stand shaping themselves in the gloom. He groaned and flopped back down into bed, his hand to his brow. Moments passed as he came slowly awake, the dream becoming now just a memory, now not even sure if he'd had a dream. He looked at his clock. It glowered angrily at him, telling him in dark red letters that he was awake far too early. And he was cold. And suddenly reality took a step back for he was soaking wet. He jumped out of bed, feeling stupid for not noticing that he was covered in water from head to toe. His hair was plastered to the sides of his head, his shirt hanging on him, becoming persistently obvious because it was cold and wet. His bed was wet where he'd been laying, but nowhere else. He flipped on the light, which really exploded into the room rather than just coming on. He blinked hard. He searched vainly about, but he could find no wet footprints that might have told him he'd been wet when he stumbled in last night. This morning? Late, anyway. So late that he'd apparently just fallen into bed in whatever he'd been wearing. Had it rained last night? Had he fallen in a pool at a party? His memory refused to be pinned down on any particular event. He thought about the previous day, and what he'd been doing. He shook his head, and wondered into the bathroom to change clothes, still mulling it over in his head. Timelessness rolled into meaninglessness, and both collapsed into time and space. He was back in the mist. He was unafraid this time, almost sure of himself. The mist was warmer, and he stepped forward as confidently as the lack of vision enabled him. The not-shadow was found after less time than before, but it took him longer to reach it. However, he was looking for it, and when he found it, his heart paused in its beating, sending an aching gasp through his body. He stumbled forward, and passion for her, and wonder of her, collided inside him. He stepped out of the mist, to fall down in her presence. She sat gracefully on an arch in the tree, aware of him, never surprised, but always in suspense. She stood, looking more like invisible threads of silk pulled her to her feet. Her smile grew at the sight of him, and his heart erupted in his chest, threatening to pound its way out and over to her if he didn't run to her quickly. He took a step forward, unsure of words, unsure even of ideas, except that she was beyond belief, and he wanted her more than anything else in existence. Before he could sort through the tangled mass that was his mind, she was in his arms. She was warm and soft, and everything he'd hoped, yet more than he could imagine. Her eyes gazed up at him, and he was lost amid the waves and the storms. He sunk in, and was drowning, and didn't want to be saved. Her eyes closed, and he bent slowly to kiss her. And his heart did explode, running down to his feet and out onto the ground, threatening to take the rest of him with it, for her lips were unlike any he'd kissed before. He could scarcely feel when his lips had touched hers, so soft were they. Their touch was like snow falling into a crystal pool, and slowly dissolving in its embrace. She tasted like gold that had been tested by fire, and his thirst for her was unquenchable and fulfilled in the same instant. She parted from him slowly, the kiss lingering, dancing about his mouth and mind. He felt as though he had been conquered, and that he could conquer all. She said not a word, but only raised her arm, slowly, to slip it around his waist, and steady him with her presence. Her other hand she placed before him, and laying upon it was a ring of such gold that it appeared red, and a single emerald dazzled his eyes. The jewel was almost as deep as her eyes, and as he stared into it, she slipped it onto his finger. It fit perfectly. Such a state was he in, he just stared at it, then at her, lost. She smiled, slipping her hand up to tilt his head down, and gently caressing his mouth with her lips once again. The world collapsed in on itself, and he fell a thousand feet to land in her arms. Time stopped, and as he held her, nothingness returned and reality folded itself away. He opened his eyes to look at the ceiling of his room. And gently, passionately, he felt her lips drift away from his. And the world came crushing in on him. He'd only dreamed her. He sat up in bed, and his heart thudded dully in his chest. He wanted to run to her, to find her. He would have run to where the sun touches the ocean, if he could have found her there. But she was nowhere. And he could not find her no matter how hard he looked. He threw himself back down in his bed, fiercely trying to will himself into sleep. Came it not. His determination spilled slowly out of him, leaving him empty, drained, and wanting her so much he felt as if he would burst. He rolled over in bed, and great sobs racked his body, shaking his shoulders. Everything he had would be sacrificed, in a heartbeat, or less, if he could have her. Timelessness was his, yet, now, time marched invariably onward, and his clock ticked off the eternities. A million years later, after crying himself into oblivion, he struggled to a sitting position, and slowly opened his eyes. He lifted the hand that had been the dream hand to receive the ring. And jumped to his feet, stumbling backwards and over himself to fall crashing to the floor, when he saw that very ring. He stared at his hand splayed out before him. It definitely looked like the ring she had given him, in the dream. He stood to turn on his light, then sank slowly down onto his bed, all the while his gaze fastened on the ring. He looked closely at it as the light chased away the shadows in his room. The emerald was as bright, and he looked intently at it. The jewel was very deep, and as he watched, storms began to rage, over a foaming sea. And he could see her beauty reflected in the ring. His gaze shifted to the darkened window above his bed. He looked outside, looked at the stars, and looked into eternity. Somehow, a ring he had dreamed about was now in his hands. And the thought scared him almost as much as it fastened him. Almost.   The library had opened late. He knew, because he'd waited for its great doors to open since the sun had first peeked over the eastern mountains. The librarian had let him in grudgingly, the silver chain preventing her glasses from fleeing jingling noisily. He'd gone straight to the section that concerned itself with books on dreams and carried all of them up to the check-out desk. The same dried-out lady had informed him, smugly, that he was limited to ten books, and pointed out happily that he had at least thirty. He'd argued at first, but eventually, just left with all of them, the lady's indignant shout trailing after him as he went through the door. Ten o'clock, which meant, on most days, including this one, that he was supposed to have been at work for an hour, came and went, without his noticing. The same thing happened at five, when he was supposed to leave the work he'd never gone to. He made himself something to eat after it had been dark for a while, but it amounted to heating up something that was probably best left cold, and fingering it while he read. Six hours later, the food was again cold, and remained untouched. Still he read. He feel asleep into his reading when the sun rose for the second time, but she did not come to visit him. He awoke with the desperate feeling of hopelessness, of the longing for her so much he could feel physical pain. In an explosion of collected frustration, he threw his empty glass towards the kitchen. It shattered, shards of glass exploding and filling the air, to land on the cold linoleum. He left it where it lay. Determination filled him once again, and he returned to his books, forcing his desperation in them. Three days passed much the same as the first, and by the last he had read every book. None contained any information that gave him a clue as to what had happened. He fingered the ring as the last rays of a dying sun flashed of its polished surface, and he sank into the gem, watching as her shadow danced across the face of a raging storm. He stumbled off to his bed, falling to the cold sheets. The darkness closed in around him. He knew no hunger, though he'd barely eaten in the last four days. He wasn't tired, though sleep had come only fitfully, and shortly, without her embrace even once. He lay, and the sheets chilled him, as did the temperature in the room, of which he cared nothing. Slowly, imperceptibly, the reality of his room faded, drifting into nothingness, folding itself around emptiness, and disappearing completely. He fell asleep. The mist rolled into being slowly, hesitantly, almost fearfully. But he did not challenge it, noting nothing unusual, except that he was here, finally. He ran forward, stumbling, falling over the uneven ground, that in its efforts to avoid him, only tripped him more. He ran on for an eternity, straining every muscle to run, every nerve to find her. The mist filtered around him, the same in every direction. He stopped running, pausing for a second, then running off in a new direction, recklessly searching for her. He stopped again, panting, dropping his head down and resting on his knees, trying to get air. He stood again, still breathing hard, and looked slowly around him. All directions contained the same nothingness, the same rolling reality that was not. He turned slowly, tensing himself to notice any variation in the mist, any change that would lead him to her. And there it was. He took of in that direction at a dead run. The mist grew lighter, the lack of shadow became more intense. He ran on harder, and suddenly pitched forward, caught on a cleft in the invisible ground, rushing forward, to fall, slamming into the hard earth, and sliding to a crushed halt. The world turned up on end, and folded in on itself, crashing down, to explode in his head, and reverberate down his spine, and out his fingers and toes. He groaned, and rolled over on his back, completely blinded by the entirety of the mist. Something warm trickled down his knee, and the same for his forehead, running down his eye, blinding him further. He put his hand to the spot, then to his mouth, and tasted his lack of caution, the blood running down his face. He shook his head angrily, cursing, and struggled to his feet, wincing as he put too much weight on the wrong knee. He struggled onward. And finally, burst forth into an island of reality, or an island of reflected reality. And a figure leaned against the tree, and he limped forward, his heart filling with hope and dread, and emotion so powerful he knew he could not contain it. As he neared the robed figure, it tilted its head, and he looked into the glowing eyes of an old man, with long white hair flowing from under the hood of his robe. He fell backwards in surprise, and all feeling fled his being, and he crashed to the ground. The old man looked at him, and his eyes conveyed more meaning than any mouth could hope to imitate. The old man gazed levelly at him for a second, and a flood of meaning washed over him. She is okay. He shook his head, and the pain from the recent wound to his body, and the other to his soul, pierced him like an arrow. The old man looked down at him. Do you want her? His heart leapt with excitement, with passion, with hope, with all things he felt when he held her, and answered for him more clearly than words could ever express. He was filled with the desire for her, the need for her to be in his arms. He would do anything to have her. The old man raised an eyebrow, scarcely perceptibly, but speaking volumes as the lack of mist floated around them. Anything? He nodded his head, slowly, deliberately, and only one time. The old man's voice echoed through the island, the first spoken words ever heard in the timelessness that was. "Your dreams are your reality." And the world divided itself into nothingness, folding up on its lack of substance, to reappear as his dresser in the pre-dawn hours of a moonless night. He sat up in bed, and quickly jumped to his feet, falling almost as quickly as pain erupted in his knee, forcing him to the ground. He grabbed his leg, and warm wetness greeted his touch. He fumbled for the light then sat blinking in its glow. His pants were torn and wet, and a gash oozed blood from his knee. He put his hand to his forehead finding what he knew he'd find. He hobbled into the bathroom to clean up and change clothes. As he lay down a few minutes later, his leg bandaged and his clothes changed, he was filled with excitement, as thoughts of her charged his emotions. And as the nothingness began to swirl about his room, changing his furniture into an emptiness of nothing, the thought crept upon him slowly. And he went to simply disregard it, until its full impact hit him like an explosion. His dreams were real. And the impact of that thought brought on his next one. What if he had a nightmare? main | site explanation | wife | christian | community leader | musician graphic artist | teacher | writer | mom | chef | champion | crafter | sign guestbook © 1997, 1998 Sheila