May 1999 ....................... [load original version ]

At a mist of a silence, I am looking at the sunset. My eyes, not strong enough to stand the heat of the sunlight, watched, while my ears have listened. Sometimes I’m here, yet sometimes I’m not. Sometimes with a good reason, more often without one. I am traveling toward the center of the earth. My ride moves by itself, fueled by forces bigger and superior than all the others. I can’t help myself not noticing a violet dark light in the distance, but there I stop. My ride moves on without me.

Lost in a miracle, I was standing at the unknown crossroad wandering where I am? There was no Sun, no good old friendly sky blanket either. I was in the womb of mother earth, somewhere deep, half way.

From a nearest dark, there were these mysterious people approaching me, people with weird, somehow evil eyes, and without a shadow on the light that shone upon my presence.

“Good… evening?” startled by a moment, I have greeted them and for the first time I felt the inflow of fear in my veins. They were everywhere around me.

“You must be my creations?” I asked them suspiciously. It occurred to me that this could be just my illusion. I wouldn’t be surprised. Yet, this time there was no Exit, and I never felt fear before. Pleasure more likely.

“Say something!” Maniacally I looked for their shadows, which were inconspicuous.

“You! Finally you came!” One of them spoke in phantasmal tone by pointing its finger at me. They came so close to me, they could touch me.

Suddenly a song of angel. The echo of her harmony reverberated from one of several possible directions. She got all my attention. People were gone.

I followed the sound, although I wasn’t aware of what was making it. I was spell-bound by it. Then I heard a hum that was coming from the opposite direction. The sound was getting louder and louder. It was coming from behind the closed door. Red light that seemed to be spreading from the unknown became intolerable as the fog moved over the path made of stone.

I stopped. I could hear the song of an angel on my right, and I could see the mysterious door on my left. I’m at the center of the crossroad again. Confused, I felt the need to go one way. And so I did. I went left.

As I moved one final step over the doorstep, the door suddenly shut behind me. I was petrified by what I saw. I wanted to get out instantly, but I couldn’t. The door got volcanic.

I watched all those demon characters as they were laying in some gigantic ashtray, alighted by that same light from before. They were shadows.

My ride is here again. I flew over indescribable, hellish fragments of my own sub-consciousness. I’ve stopped in front of my own face. Except for that wasn’t me. My every move would repeat itself like in a mirror, but there was no mirror there. I touched him and he touched me. Supreme experience. 

“Are you me?” I asked my other me by looking him straight in the eyes.

“I am you, as much as you are me…” He tried to answer, but he didn’t stop there.

“…But you do not belong here,” he said and disappeared in the fog.

I resumed my journey. I was thinking about what I said to myself. And as I went further, I could finally see the Exit, but I couldn’t reach it. I was withheld by an angel who held a harp in one hand, and sang that same tune as before. She stood in a doorway and didn’t want to let me leave. She didn’t want to let me out, to freedom.

“I should’ve gone right!” loudly I spoke this regret.

At that single moment, everything vanished. And even though I can see and hear again, all I can sense is a complete blackness and silence. I am all alone here. I am fainting.

* * *

A new awakening. It is a new day for me. A new opportunity. A new sunrise with a possibility of another sunset. I’m getting up, and there I am again, in the center of the earth. And once again, I’m on the unknown crossroad. Lost and confused, I wonder which way should I choose now?