Prologue

My bare feet tapped against soft dirt with each stride, sprinting gracefully between trees. Massive flora of all hues rapidly bloomed around me, sunset-tinted lilies, white trilliums, and rose-flushed pinecones, more bright and vivacious than life itself. They emanated the terpenes of citrus, spearmint, petrichor, and every sweet aroma in the world, saporous on my tongue, nearly palpable on my skin. Birds sang and bells chimed with them, sparkling in the vibrant air. The life surrounded me in flowery ecstasy, pulsing with inconceivable colors and breathing with its polychromatic petalled lungs. This place was all I had and this forest was my life. A flock of flamingos soared over the treetops, following the clouds that floated across a turquoise ocean of a sky. In the face of this land, I am just a girl. I am small, fragile, and alone, waiting for God to reveal himself from behind the clouds. I leapt through the rift of a split tree and watched small fairies hum and twirl through the air, tracing illuminated circles around the coronas of flowers. I came to a halt and let the blossoms curl about my curves, embracing me in their petals. I am so young and there is so much that I don’t understand, so much beyond me that I feel I will never comprehend, and so I let it all wrap around me at once, accepting what I must. God gave me this world long ago and lived in it with me. I could feel his presence in every grain of soil, in every rustling leaf. Now all I could do was ask myself if I’d angered him or fallen out of his interest, perhaps abandoned or left to die, having nothing to say but “Don’t leave me yet.” I figured when I do leave this earth, it’ll all make sense. Maybe God will surface himself from the empyrean ocean of clouds and answer my prayers. But until then, I must hold onto the faith that I will find my own understanding, lest I fail a trial of independence. One day I'll live to tell the tale of how I lost my mind, how I had everything blooming at my fingertips except for the guidance that I needed. This here is the epic tale of a broken mind.

The Tale

I laid down among the flowers to catch my breath. They twisted and bloomed and wilted around me, some saying hello, others waving goodbye, and they lowered their stalks for me to lay upon their petals, and lifted me up towards the glowing sun like a ritual. My golden “S” necklace laid on my chest, outlined in encrusted diamonds that shimmered with every color around me. That was my first initial, the one letter that made me human.

Among the sounds of birds and bells and the wind shaking leaves was an organ faintly placing its dense chords over the background noise. A distance ahead of me was a wooden cross standing proudly among the flora, being climbed by little flowers and vines. Beside it was a large pipe organ, emitting the melody from its tall silver tubing. I sat up from my bed of flowers and approached it, pushing massive petals and ferns aside, seeing that the organ was playing autonomously and that I was still just as alone. I stared at the cross, a replica of the one that God sacrificed himself on. He was not on this iteration, not even in a sculpted form, replaced by peppered florescence crawling along the wood. I wasn’t sure whether it was necessary to pray or not.

Further through the forest was a stream of perfectly clear water. I stood at its earthy edge and watched it flow, a vein of liquid glass through the world, barely present, nothing more than thin golden chains of sunlight that revealed its details. Tiny flower petals, purple, blue, pink, and orange scattered and rushed through the stream like stars. I took my clothes off and folded them neatly on the ground should I return for them, leaning forward and diving like a javelin into the cool water with a trail of bubbles. The chiming and whistling of nature was muffled by rumbling aquatic pillows. I let the current take me, blurring the cold gradient between the stream and my skin, between liquid water and solid body, surrounded by a swirling psychedelic aura of flowers. I hugged my arms to my chest and let myself roll through the water, seeing a version of myself swimming in the dark expanses of mind, floating horizontally in slow motion through an infinite array of petals. The liquid shimmers black and gold like snakeskin and my hair becomes my angelic wings, wrapping around my form. Here my thoughts are clearer; they swim alongside me. One day I will enter this realm for the final time and it will take me to reality, and drag me to the truth.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I opened my eyes to a bottle with its roots dug in the sand beneath me. I dove an echelon deeper, reaching my hands beyond my head, and snatched the object by its neck. Its glass was polished and pale blue, wrapped in a coral pink label embellished with a jungle of leaves, vines, and strange pink fruit, reading “Z Suburban Lager.” It was pleasantly pastel for a beer, and I imagined it would taste more like a tart white wine, fizzing as I swallow it.

By night time, I floated to the surface on my back and felt the breeze kiss my face, the sounds of life returning, my curls loosened and weighed down by water as I took a refreshing gasp of air. The birds had quieted and left space for crickets and the faint sound of rushing water. Beside the stream was a little farm, with an old barn and a few hay bales overgrown by the gluttonous environment. In the now murky sky above it was a full, radiant ice moon, hanging with glistening icicles, bathing the farm in a blue crepuscular glow. My guiding light, my spherical crucifix in the sky had frozen over, becoming icy and stiff.

I climbed onto the river bank, flowers still peppered on my hair and my skin, the wind clinging to me. I sat on a hay bale, placing my hands behind me and hanging one leg off like a model in a painting, facing the river and breathing in the chill. I looked towards the heavens, so distant above my head, and towards the river, its surface flowing with ripples that reflected bits of moonlight, free and endless, and towards my legs, still naked and undeniably human, yet I felt like I was so much more. I wished to unstick my thoughts, unstick my heart, unstick the words I’ve said to God that couldn't make it around the ice moon and reach his domain. Sometimes I wished I could climb to heaven and appear to him myself, to untie my hands, untie my feet, so I might fly. I’d throw my thoughts into the lake of heaven and God’s ripples would reveal everything. In my longing I laid down and drifted to sleep, hoping to become closer to the empyrean in my dreams.

I awoke to the sun rising from the horizon, blossoming its shining vermillion petals into the air, casting a red glow over the top of the barn and every tree in the forest behind it. As the rays struck my skin I felt their heat igniting within myself, and as the sun rose, so did I. It raptured me into the air as the world below me receded, pulling me towards heaven where I would finally find God once again. I stood in the sky, clouds racing over my head, the sun still elevating itself from the horizon. The landscape below me switched between instants, transforming from vibrant forest to  deep ocean to grand snowy mountains. I felt my humanity leaving me, evolving into something much greater. I am made of bacon, fairy tales, pixie dust. Up here the air is so thin, mountains on my fingertips, yet it was warm enough to keep my exposed skin serene. Beyond myself, beyond the landscapes and the clouds and the still emerging sun, I saw God in my eyes. I stood still and at peace, hoping he’d show me the way to his hiding place, his cloudy domain in the afterlife. God did not speak with his divine voice, nor write with his sea-splitting fingers, he simply embraced me, bringing me closer to heaven than any lone human could have gone, and with that experience I finally understood what it means to be all-present, Whether he is in my eyes or not. Keep the sun at your back. Keep your feet firmly planted in the sky.