Friday, August 22, 2008

Dreams & Angels


And yet again, I started dreaming of Angels this week. Through the night I aroused and sensed that I picked up subdued whispers. I peeked through the heavy curtains of my room, past the shadows to a quiver of lights. The neighborhood smelled like a thousand marshes reeking in the sun and the night suddenly was filled with a thousand howling dogs. On an impulse, I quietly covered up my nakedness and without switching on the light tiptoed out of the front door, scrambled up the stairs, crouched beside the terrace parapet and peered into the darkness, my heart thumping violently.


A sight so awing confronted my eyes and for a moment my body benumbed. There they stood in a circle, seven Angels in all, all their scales glinting in a blackish shine with their squirming action. They held burning torches that seemed burning obscure silhouettes. Suddenly the moon faded as if hurt in pain, and the dark clouds dissolved to tears as the gates of paradise violently closed. All wet by the pouring rain I looked on as the night continued to loose itself in endless howling of a thousand dogs.


Soon they laid down their fire torches, now extinguished and threw them down. I watched in horror as the moon suddenly came out and I noticed the snakes around their white flowing robes. I suddenly realized that the fire they held earlier were actually serpents. Abruptly the inevitable happened: I coughed.

A silence engulfed the night and suddenly I heard the flutter of a thousand ravens and found myself lifted into the naked night. I struggled in pain as the claws cut into my bareness and I soon found myself falling with a thud among the snakes. I attempted to yell and place myself upright but noticed that the snakes now coiled around my arms and ankles and disgustedly across my mouth.

Then, as the circle closed behind me, with me sprawled fully naked in the center, I heard chanting. They stood there singing and chanting. There was the vibrating sound inside the circle like a thousand angels, singing, chanting the music of a thousand hyenas. A state of being carried away by overwhelming emotion, rapture?

After some time, the full serpent circle began to disperse. I blindly looked around me. The world looked different. The surroundings looked different. They were different. It just didn't feel different, it was different. I suddenly heard drums. How could and from where could I hear the drums? Surely someone was drumming. Surely someone was dancing around me. Surely someone was around me. Suddenly everyone was different. What had passed? As I stood watching, a shadow suddenly came over. The shadow put his hand on my shoulder and asked me, what happened. For an instant I remembered what it was like to be with the warm earth, the cool sky and each other; living. It is the happiness of that reminiscence that I feel. The shadow shook his head in complete agreement, comforted and patted my shoulder as it walked away.

No comments: