Write Club: Behind the Veil

The look on her face said “HEAR ME?!” She wasn’t sure if that was meant to be a question or a demand. An exclamation, an exasperated imploring cry. Who knew at this point? She’d been quiet for so long that even to her, the pleads were merely faint echoes bouncing around in a container of the past, caught in a confused cycle. Hitting one wall and rounding back along the boundary to shoot across the dark vacuum of space they inhabited. Existing in a vacuum isn’t really existing much at all. So she just let that deep space peer out from behind her dark eyes.

 If you could see it, you’d be mesmerized by its brilliance. Imagine the entire Universe swirling around in something that seemed confined but was found to be endless as you searched for its edges. Infinite creation and destruction dancing in tune. And carried around in every speck of every being. Carried around on the necklace of a cat named Orion. Carried around in the free beer handed to the homeless man at the intersection. In the fresh new box of crayons for the first day of kindergarten. In the wildflowers blooming along the side of the turnpike. Carried around in her eyes.

But even with all this brilliance, she couldn’t force them to see. Couldn’t make them sit still long enough to find the patience to look for those edges, to wonder what stars were being created by the stardust of those which had exploded in a grand celebration. She couldn’t teach them the language of her knowing, the words and sounds that would join together to create the most luminous symphony of understanding. That’s all she was asking for, some understanding. Someone to witness her. Would they ever be so blessed as to experience this world she was holding inside her? This world she saw stifled inside all of them? 

Some days it seemed to be too much to exist this way. Hidden and hiding. Silent and screaming out. She felt the cosmos swirling around inside her searching for cracks to pour out of, yet at the same time completely content with their home behind her eyes. They’d be peering out waiting to meet another soul who could HEAR HER, who could SEE HER. Knowing that when it happened, the light of a billion suns would engulf them both, just for a moment, a confirmation of each other’s existence, before they both continued along their own paths, that much more aware of their own continuation.

A question or a demand… there’s no need to hold their heads and point them toward the direction of Truth with a capital T. They’ll find it or they won’t. They’d remain ignorant or they’ll fall into themselves and the Truth of the universe. They can live eternally, joining in the divine dance of the cosmos, embracing destruction as liberation, eager to lift their mayas/veils, or they can walk blind and deaf through this single, dying planet, leaving nothing more than a faint echo amidst her great roar.