#4. THat Wasn’t A Microdose
Apologies in advance for the lack of photos. A lookout of shit has been going down so I wanted to get this out and will try to add them later.
If you remember, we paused just at the moment when Audra had given me the *magic* ring and informed me that I was something called a "Night Huntress." Which I still think is a dumb fuck name.
Now you should prepare yourselves for a lot less snark and a lot more wtf in today's post. Probably. Though I'm sure my chaos will leak out every now and then.
And, Andrew L., FYI: Gerald isn't featured in this piece and unfortunately this post is sure to create even more questions fro you that I can't offer answers to yet. And, I know...there's no explanation of the space bit yet, but we'll get there. I promise. Eventually. Probably. Patience, my friend.
Okay, so I'm standing there rolling my eyes at "Night Huntress," I slip the ring onto my finger and fragments of stories or I guess my own memories(?) crash over me.
The first one is just a feeling....the tight coil of my ever present anxiety looses itself from my lungs, my throat and I can breathe for the first time in...maybe my whole life. Whoa...trippy.
I stand in the darkness, a backpack slung over my shoulder. Not like your basic Jansport but something that holds other things, hmmm I don't have the right word maybe a satchel? Yeah, that feels true.
Poking out of the aforementioned satchel are tightly rolled papers, dark blue and scroll like or maybe architecture plans? Somehow I know they are maps of...something.
I can't remember what exactly but I feel...I know their importance.
I dig through the other tools weight the bag. A burnished slightly dented spyglass, a matching compass with a needle that points in my direction -- I flip it open and another face lies beneath the first and this arrow spins quickly, round and round. A small hard marble sized ball appears to contain flickering flames inside. They dance and twist, throwing out much more light than something so small should.
There's no kleenex or chapstick or snacks. All things I'd normally toss in. Snacks are important. You really don’t want to see me hangry.
In their place I find a knife, solid red stag antler handle with a short blade ending in a wickedly curved tip. Writing like the ring on my finger moves fluidly along the swirled metal.
It feels alive.
And then images around me begin to flicker.
I see a silver figure standing before a black and darkened sea.
She appears to be holding a world? planet? in her hands. Both she and it are surrounded by silent stars. How do I know their silent? I can’t really explain that, I just know they are. And as we’ve learned from Winona, things in space are far more noisy than humans realize.
I look more closely. One foot is off the ground as if she is running. But she's not. She's frozen, staring straight ahead. Her eyes are unblinking and as I watch the silver begins to flow from her and into the sea until she is just bones.
Bones holding a galaxy of silent worlds. (Stars are just far away planets, yes?)
I feel tears on my cheeks. Her sorrow displaces my normal snark and I feel the heaviness in my chest.
Another fragment intrudes. I am someplace that looks like a cabaret, like the Moulin Rouge, maybe? Lights glimmer above and beneath and surrounding me.
A man stands before me with an odd steampunk looking helmet covering his head. It has a spine that lays down the center of his skull with intricate swirls covering the sides encrusted with rubies, garnets, other red stones I can't identify. The light catches them and they twinkle at me.
He looks at me expectantly but I don't know what he wants. I open my mouth to ask and an early model flip phone (really?!?) in my hand rings.
Fumbling to open it (it’s been a minute!!) An unexplainable excitement fills me as I open it and hear, "you have been chosen for the Festival des Lumieres..."
The lights flicker out and I am somewhere else. Surrounded by gauzy jewel tones not unlike Winona.
My Beloved stands before me. And yeah, I'm well aware of how weird that is considering my relationship history (or lack thereof).1
But that's what he is. My Beloved. Capital M. Capital B.
I can't see his eyes. But I know what they feel like and I see the tiny gold threads filigree across and through and out of him. A particularly thick one reaches for me and his lips turn up into a smile, the most ridiculous pair of dimples revealing themselves (yeah, I know...dimples, Jupiter?!).
His hand strokes the side of my face, and he speaks. "My little black dove."
And I know...I am his and he is mine. Right now I don’t know the how or why or what and definitely not the when of it. But I know, like deep fire in your gut know, it has always been so. We have always been so.
He shimmers out and a sky opens above me pouring out rainbow rain. I feel a tug and look down. I'm holding the hand of a little girl. We laugh loudly while splashing through colored puddles. Joy. Pure joy.
I taste her name on my lips. Lola.
Flicker, next. A young boy, face framed by a dark cowl like hood. Three dogs run before us, their leashes wrapped around his small hand. I do not fear him but I do feel a sense of...wariness. He walks before me as we move through an ancient city beneath a sea.
The water disappears and a coral door, something almost nautical looking about it, reveals itself. A porthole, a spin of the circular handle on the airlock and I walk through. An endless hall stretches before me of marble and stone arches opening into other halls, each holding the most wondrous and terrifying things.
I am one of them. Wondrous, terrifying, more than I know yet..
A dusty temple rises above me, massive figures guard it stretching into the sky. The path before me is made of gold and amethyst, tall cedars line its edges. It twists and turns, a labyrinth full of more arched openings.
A woman turns and smiles at me winking, then steps through one of them into a darkness that makes my skin crawl. I feel the ugly shade of empty. Tbh its creepy AF. Her wink and the ugliness paired together.
Then I realize, I know her. I have seen her before. That woman that disappeared. Lily Jo Greggs....wtf?
No time for questions, the images and feelings spin faster...
The Old Ones. Are they trees? They are gasping for air. Calling out for help. I hear them. No one hears us, they say. But I do. I open my hands and...
I am running into a cave. The entire thing is made of rose quartz. It captures and twists the light, emitting a steady and gentle hum. I fall to my knees and light wraps around me...
I am a vine, grafted together with my sister vines. We are weaving things into being faster and faster. We move in sync. We glow and share and ask in the darkness...
Then I'm pulled back to the real world, or maybe the present? I don't fully understand it yet because WHO WOULD?! Night Huntress or not.
Anyway the right now me is bent over heaving and trying to suck in air as those endless halls of memories stretch out before me. I hold them all, feel them all at once. I also feel nausea clawing its way up my throat. This knowledge is too much and not enough and I understand but also don't understand at all.
In a tiny unlit corner of my spirit are just as many halls full of untouched, maybe unreachable memories.
I gasp again, seeking oxygen, my thoughts scream and my body aches. And more than anything I want to throw up.
"Enough," the firm calm voice of Audra speaks and all the memories slide into place. The nausea is gone. I can breathe and I am once again on the front porch chilling between Winona and the Great Empty.
"Stop forcing them. Let them come when you’re ready for them,” she says. And I scrunch up my face. I didn’t see them all but I could definitely feel that some of those halls held things I did not want to remember.
She continued, “You’ve been human a long time. I mean not so much in non-human time, but long enough for the return of yourself to be painful. Until you have stretched back into the fullness of your being, you'll remember only human memories, then, when you’re ready, others will come."
Others? I've been human for a long time? But I'm not human???? Or maybe I am human but also...?
"What the actual fuck was that?" I asked. "Did I microdose this morning?” A little far into this space/time party to be wondering that, “I do not remember doing that. But this is fucking insane."
I close my eyes, "That was real! I have been in all those place!. I have been all those people or maybe all the same person or spirit or reincarnation?" My mind whirled.
Audra smiles as I shake my head and continue rambling, "it didn’t just feel like different times though. It felt like different places too! Like different worlds...maybe not all Earth?"
I close my mouth and lean back into the familiar and comforting embrace of the rocking chair. Back and forth I move as these memories settle into me and I feel their truth.
I was something Other. AM something other, something more. Night Huntress. What is that? Also, I am so changing that stupid name.
Then a thought bubbles up that sends shivers down my still very human spine, what had been so dangerous I’d chosen to hide? And what does this even mean for my real life? Or rather my coffee cart, Gerald and her babies smelling up the house under the porch, Kath and her rusty cars....that life?
I didn’t know and Audra didn’t seem prepared to answer that at the moment.
Phwww, that was a roller coaster. We're going to pause there and pick up next week. Btws thanks to ALL the 40(!) people reading this/ taking this wild ride with me. Even you, Andrew L :)
I have no doubt at least a few of you will fill my inbox with your questions and theories. Can’t wait!
We’re not going down that rabbit hole in this post. In fact, I can’t see that topic factoring into this blog at all.