Burning eyes smoulder the world. Everything arises beautifully in flames, like a moving ancient pyre, resurrected.
Saturday mornings, all the same since 1982, 1989, 2000, 2006, 2011. The morning dew felt the same, the morning chill felt the same, and I was still the same, unchanged, unaltered by the several exploding sounds and the burning yet dormant fire within me.
I saw an old lady on the street who called me an animal and shouted with a shocking look on her old wrinkly face. I was walking to see my earthly heaven which has been enough for me across three decades, but that woman ruined it. I walked on though, the fire still burning to no avail. I went in circles above a green clearing, listening to the profound echo of my heart. Then I saw a man upon a hill, wearing a shirt and a vest and cowboy boots. He saw me and told me to breathe so that I can feed what is within me. I breathed in one long doleful breath and suddenly I felt a searing sensation come from my bellybutton. I pulled up my shirt and saw a little trickling flame coming out of it. I looked at the man and he smiled me, nodding his head, congratulating me, but what did that mean?
I walked, still feeling the searing flame coming out of my bellybutton. I took another breath, the flame grew bigger. I took another and the flame exploded and went out of me. A flaming soul went out of me. It floated above me like a cloud, but it lit my way and I walked along the path it lit. I pressed fallen leaves with my foot, I diverted entangled branches with my hands, I burnt down heavy obstacles with my fire. I thrust(ed) through caved woods. I reached my destination, to the goal I aspire, a statue floating above murky mire.
Just then my fire diminished and disappeared, and I thought I should retire from my task, although the statue called to me. Its shining whiteness told to cross the muddy path and claim my prize. But what hefty price should I pay for beauty, a possibility of death. I meditated on my task and closed my eyes, but my eyes could not stay closed when a flash of light came from above me and hit the stone. It painted it pallid with life, and it started moving, aching, screaming, shouting.
It called to me now with its voice and its shine. The statue, a girl, she called to me. Her voice made me focus on my task again. I stood up on my feet and pressed on foot in the mire. It drowned slowly. I put my other foot in front and pushed and pulled myself forward. The statue’s scream became louder, piercing the woods, destroying the most staunch roots and stiff trunks. I breathed and went on. All my body became submerged in the mire, only my head was left to be drowned in the murky slimy swamp. The mire of my will was getting the best of me. I desperately tried to hold on to anything beneath the mire to pull myself to, but I found nothing. The distance to the statue did not even seem to diminish, but her screams sounded like a great Wagner symphony, they rumbled and raged and roared, but I was impotent, and weak, and powerless. My head went down beneath the mire where no fire can exist, where no sound can pass through its dense medium. I closed my eyes and trapped my breath as long as I can. The time came to pass by, to move on, to cross to the other side and I opened my eyes. I saw nothing but black, nothing but darkness. I opened my mouth and inhaled a deep breath, and I couldn’t stop. I inhaled and inhaled until I felt my lungs explode; I exhaled.
An orange ray came out of me, the fire resurrected. It cleared the line of vision and I saw the base of the statue, a cage. I saw the wailing girl entrapped in its bars; I saw the statue made flesh, an even better sculpture than the statue itself. I saw her grand in her helplessness, I saw her beautiful in her surrender, I saw her luscious in her nakedness. Her wet body smoothed my way to her and on I went. The mire had parted like the red sea as Moses stabbed it with his staff, and I the same, made my way between two parted mire falls, towards salvation. The path was easy, the path was clear. I made my way towards her voice which I could now hear. Life within me rushed as I came near, the world with-out me stood in fear. She saw me coming and braced herself, I was so close to finish the cross to the other side. She reached out for me and I extended my arm to her. Our extended limbs touched each other and she spoke.
“Fortune is a woman,” she said, “please her and you will reach the highest mountaintops and the deepest oceans. Release me, and I’ll show you all that you can ever be. I’ll show you the way.”
I pulled her body towards mine and pushed us up above the surface. We rose. My salvation and her salvation; we liberated each other from the shackles of Heaven and other celestial bodies. My Virtue and her Fortune arose.
Burning eyes smoulder the world. Everything arises beautifully in flames, like a moving ancient pyre, resurrected.
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