I thought I could feel your hand clasped in mine; your small fingers, clinging tightly to my own. I almost expected you to whisper something in my ear, something consolidating, something to make it all seem okay, but instead I heard silence, and when I tried to press my fingers more tightly against yours, I found that my hand was empty. You were not there, and I was alone. The thought of you had been a trick, an idea put into play by a mind trying to distract itself from the knowledge that it was dying. It was supposed to be kind, to ease me out of life, but when I looked at the space where your hand was not, I could have sworn my heart broke, had it not been for the fact that I could hear it thumping steadily, as it had been for the past hour.
I hate that I am dying. I never thought it could happen- not to me. Not death. Death was for the naive, the optimists, those that chose to embrace it, and to love it, those that allowed the coldness to sweep over them; that allowed themselves to end. I did not believe that I could end. Was I not infinite? Was I not the centre of creation itself? Am I not God? I rejected this! I refused to accept it! How can death come for me? How can I be reduced to the same status of the countless billions that have died before me? Deceased! Even now, the word is like bitter poison, something which I must deny with every fibre of my being.
I kept expecting some kind of angel to swoop down, to take me into her arms, and whisper to me that everything would be okay, that this was just a necessary transition, from the false-life that I have lived, into my rightful place. I kept thinking- I, who who scorned religion for so many years- that some sign would appear before me, to guide the way, so that I could take my place as God, as the most fantastic of all beings. There has been no sign. No angel has graced me. I only thought, just now, that an angel might have came to me. Your hand, your skin, which I have not felt in so many years, in mine. I thought you had returned to me. I thought you were an angel.
Images dance, fleeting, before me. Images of a life spent in misery, in bitterness and self-pity. So desperate was I to be self-nourishing, to be dependent on no outward source, that I spent my life drinking from a pool of my own tears. If only I had realised sooner- but how could I, when the waters blinded me so?- that the salt from my tears was destroying me, lacing my blood and filling the crevices within my skin, until I became a manifestation of my own loathing. I despised all others, for their blatant stupidity, and I despised myself for being superior to them- but I loved you. I loved you, for the hugeness of your heart, for the way you found time to understand, to care for even the meanest of souls. I loved you for the way you saw through me, and I never wanted to lose you- but somehow, you vanished. I cannot remember your leaving, only the feeling of you not being there. Your hand, in mine. The space where your hand is not.
As the blood slows in my veins, so do my memories. I feel as though I have become empty, drained of all being. I no longer hear my heart beating. My head is filled with dreams, false-memories, things that could never have been. There is us, and there are cerulean skies. There are giant song-birds with bright-red plumage, that flicker in the sunlight like tongues of flame. There are trees that reach into the skies, their topmost branches twining through the blue matter, bearing fruits that gleam like stars in the sky, and they are so full of life that I can feel them growing in my own breast. There are gleaming lights in technicolour, that fracture and twine through landscapes with a such a joy that I know they are music given form. They spread and interweave, flowing through each other, parting in an endless shape that resembles the spreading branches of a tree, the stream of nerves that run through a human brain, or the patterns of Mandelbrot, crackling like lightning.
For a moment, I dare to forget myself, to lose myself in the phenomenon that spreads itself before me. A moment is all it takes. In that instant, I am swept away, lost in the brilliance of my surroundings. I wonder, briefly, how I ever found the space to hate, because in this beauty I can see all of mankind. I see myself, and I see my bitterness, all of my flaws and my assets, and how they are all equally wonderful. I see the God that I envisioned myself to be, and I see how that God is everything. I see those that I despised, and those that raised me in a childhood that I had all but forgotten, and I see you. I see your essence, your beauty, the endless streams of loved that flowed from your soul, and I see how that love never really left me. Your love became a part of me, as you became a part of me, and I realise that you were always there, watching me, holding me. Your hand in mine. The space where your hand is not, now full of these endless, vibrant colours. I feel as though I am bursting, full to the brim with life and energy and love, and I am overflowing, your love that had become my own flowing from my eyes as tears, and from my fingertips, and my mouth, and every pore of my skin, until I am no longer myself, but a part of an endlessly flowing stream, an inevitable rhythm, and if anyone were ever to speak the name of that rhythm, they would go on speaking until they became the words themselves, because its name is us.
I would cry, and I would scream with rage and with delight, but such actions are for the living. Myself, I am fading, and this stream of consciousness is dissipating, but I am not afraid anymore. All that I ever wanted, and all that I ever feared, I have now become. The savage desire to become God, the bitter hatred and envy that plagued me, the bird with the plumage of fire, your small hand, in mine, and the space where your hand is not. I can see it all now, I can feel it, it flows on my tongue and I taste it in my veins and in the ends of my body, and I realise everything now.
And death is only life, and life is beautiful.
