Shadows, Shades, Whispers

Apparently, it isn’t a dream. A woman is lost in a forest.

The wind blows sympathetically through her hair, making her thoughts mingle ones against the others.
Green tall trees fill her vision with flying leaves, making her stirring vision unsteady enough to make her waver.
Thin lengthy branches scratch her face with natural thorns, making her tactile skin shudder.
Thick dumpy bushes rock languidly with patterns of silent movements, making her sense of smell fade away.
Diminutive wild flowers garnish the floor with drops of unnamed colors, making her taste change into bittersweet desires.

In the horizon, there is a palace. Its outside walls are enormous, so high and longitudinal, so impossible to follow and catch with human eyesight. Its doors are black, the darkest platform of all colors, and no colors, mixed together. Its windows are colossal, hard to define as equally foggy black glasses lay there among the jambs. The palace looks abandoned, from those ivy-covered old-stained walls, from those ivy-shielded brown-tinged windows, but the running shadows prove the theory wrong. The palace is not abandoned though. It was colonized by moving shades. It is populated by vague whispers. It was matured by the years and the grazes of untold tales. It is old, a masterpiece of some ancient brain, a creation too great to bear.

It doesn’t feel like a dream. A woman is lost in a forest.

She sees the vision from an unknown Purgatory and hears the whispers of some misplaced Hell. She hears the murmurs and sighs of souls that don’t appear, but that sound alive. She hears the cracking clamor of the trees, the unbearable clatter of the branches, the exasperate blast of the bushes, and the soft whimpers of the flowers. She hears it all in her head. She loses it all in her soul. She feels it all in her heart. She senses it all in her skin.

This woman is alone, but no loneliness attacks her. The shadows, she can’t see it, but she feels its eyes on the back of her neck, its eyes on the curve of her cheeks, its eyes on the scar of her chin. Those eyes that burn… they are in every single place where her human eyes can’t reach. No solitude attacks her, yet no showing shapes surround her. The forest and its belongings only distinguish her human form, that tiny figure she had bravely endured through all of her life. The forest and its belongings, plus the collateral effects on her fragile core, tend to conceal the cold of the situation. No loneliness attacks her, but no hands guard her either.

There are chills among the whispers, but there’s nobody behind the shades. This woman is alone. There are whispers among the fields, but there’s nonentity behind the bushes. This woman is all alone. There are grips of some long branches, but they no longer scare her. She’s open to that wilderness. She won’t get upset by that sense of solitude. Yet no solitude attacks her…

It sounds like a dream. A woman is lost in a forest. The twilight is getting close as her eyes adjust to the lack of light that it’s starting to fall. She’s starting to feel awkwardness, more creepiness than actual fear. It’s her gut talking – there is nothing that can hurt you but yourself. She repeats the judgement inside her imagination to try and convince herself. She repeats the saying inside her heart to try and soothe her feelings. She repeats the rule inside her head, her ears nearly hearing the sweet sound of a cold purring voice of days before.

“Do never fear, look forward, I’ll be there to discharge you from whatever makes you fall back. You’ll be the hug I won’t deny and I, the laugh you can’t forbid. You’ll be the music I shall always dance and I, the night you shall always enjoy. You’ll be the day I’ll gladly seize and I, the hand you’ll gladly shake. All in us will be a radiating spring, and a summer made of profits. Don’t fear, look forward, I’ll be there to save you from all vice and wicked fate.”

She did not believe in those words, as the voice is no longer in her ears anymore. The voice and its owner are no longer by her side. The voice, its owner and its shield are no longer protecting her. She’s brave yet defeated. She’s tough yet crushed. She’s awake yet dreaming.

Yes, it isn’t a dream. A woman is lost in a forest.

The five senses are no longer alert. The night has come and brought coolness, indifference, dissatisfaction – and it brought the light-less cold solitude, the dark unwanted loneliness, the black hidden feelings that emerge from an unknown area of this woman’s core. Now she feels alone and crept out by what she can’t see, but can smell. It’s the rotten odor of the shadows. It’s the distraught aroma of whispers. It’s the itchy smell of emptiness. It’s the blankness in her mind as the shadows disturb her hair. It’s the vacuity in her breath as the shades blow in her lips. It’s the bareness in her soul as the whispers surround her ice rigid body, not going anywhere.

Her legs don’t shake, but they aren’t strong enough to move or force her forward. Not even the same cold purring voice was impelling her anymore, it was only freezing her. She was alone, and now lonely, in the middle of a shaking forest, with that lost yet inhabited palace in front of her now night-blinded gaze.

This woman was sitting on the ground, covered with petals, leaves and branches all around her. Her spot was, however, clean from all that forest filth. It felt like sitting on soft grass, as if her body was expected exactly there and not someplace else. If felt like sitting on the perfect garden, the Sacred Garden, where times does not pass by, where shadows do not soar, where shades do not float, where whispers do not sound. It felt like sitting on a Dreaming World – a parallel dimension where nothing can harm, where humans are alive, where ‘Never’ is the forbidden word.

However, there were shadows, shades, whispers, and it scares her again. It gives her chills, shivers and thrilling sensations on her body, mind and soul. Here comes loneliness again – but this time it is different. This woman feels different. This woman feels lost in a dream – but she knows it is no dream. Here come the whispers to prove her right, especially to herself. The fear is consuming her, though she was warned to fear nothing and was asked to look forward. She couldn’t though. She just couldn’t. Her cruel reality comes with the whispers: the brutal fate she can’t escape, the dreary threatening voice of Demand.

A woman is lost in a forest, but she is not alone. She never was alone. She will never be alone. There is a man, there’s always a man. There are protective feelings, there are always protective feelings. There is dedication, there’s always that dedication. Yet she wasn’t ready to fully enjoy it. She’s missing parts of herself, important lacks inside herself that would never let her look, and then step, forward. There are shadows, but from the past. There are shades, but from the inside. There are whispers – but from her house.

There are shadows, but from the past. Those shadows belong to an unusual man that bought her heart with simple gazes. Those shadows belong to an uncommon man that invaded her in the sweetest way – that one she couldn’t avoid, deny or un-want. Her mind churned for his presence, as her soul yearned for his closeness, for his scent, for his taste, for his obsession, for his concrete difference that won her in the very first moment.

There are shades, but form the inside. Those shades belong to the gloomy happening that made her close to the world. Those shades are her private lost yet inhabited palace, of unending highness, of endlessly black doors, of indefinably foggy glasses, of unknown yet present colonizers. Her eyes claimed rare visions, as her mind avoided its existence. Her pulse craves for nothing more, accelerated at its maximum, in presence of unwanted beats and sounds. Her hands floated into the empty cold air above her head, as if there are angels that can pull her out of that forest where this woman is lost.

There are whispers – but from her house. The forest is not real. The woman is not lost, or perhaps in her thoughts and feelings and fears and hopes. This woman is not lost – she never left the gracious pleasant warmth of her heated human house. The forest is not real, at least not around her. She looks around, searching for the forest, the palace, the shadows or the shades. Nothing. Emptiness. Silence.

A woman is lost in a forest, but in a unique one. The green tall trees are filled with dark colors. The thin lengthy branches are scratched by a cavernous smell of ink. The thick dumpy bushes are rocked by moving crayons. The diminutive wild flowers are garnished by the coal of a pencil, jotting against old coarse paper. The woman is not lost in a forest, but in her intimate art of painting. That is her loneliness – the daily urgent call of the tools, the daily vital need of suppressing horrors, the daily imperative will of hiding from pain.

She is alone, lost among paper, pencil, ink and tint. She is lonely, lost among the horrible feelings created by unexplainable cruelty. No description is needed for that. The ache hurt too much to be explained… This woman realizes how bad she has been craving for some more – something beyond the paper, pencil, ink and tint. She hungers after something else. Is it the shadows? Is it the shades? Is it the whispers?

A woman is lost in a forest, a reincarnation of her hope. The shadows in the paper represent the man. The shades from the pencil represent her foggy feelings. The whispers from the ink represent the despair – the corrosive desolation of her recent brand. They are all mixed in those papers, torn between pencils, ink and tint. They are all combined to form the perfect shield – the ideal shelter for a broken little human.

Feelings surround her now blank mind, as the painting looks finished. It spreads the message she most adores. “Do never fear, look forward, I’ll be there to discharge you from whatever makes you fall back.” It transmits the words she most fears. It delineates the portrait she most wants to deny. It plainly describes the mood she most wants to avoid. The painting is finished and it spreads the death message of a lost woman. Lost without the shadows of the man that once was different. Lost without the shades of her desirous thoughts. Lost without the whispers of the man that once she had.

A woman is lost in an inner forest only one can destroy.

The woman stares at the painting that got her lost in a forest and remembers again the shadows, the shades and the whispers. The repetitive memory inside herself made her continue with her memories. The same expressions and images made her stabilize her feelings and end her doubts. The same expressions and images gave her the confidence to believe in hope.

A woman is lost in no forest. Her heart is not the storm of undefined silhouettes that scare her. It is the calm river descending on a mountain. It is the falling leaves of an autumn that the rain wets and the winds eventually demolish. It is the needing seeds of someone to follow – someone alive, not the same shadows, shades and whispers. She doesn’t want them now. She doesn’t need them to get her lost. She found herself in that painting. The forest of green tall trees of thin lengthy branches and thick dumpy bushes is now just an amount of colors and stripes scrawled in some papers. The forest of diminutive wild flowers that welcomes the wind and a sympathetic blow on her hair.

It seems meaningless, but for this woman it personifies the peaceful heaven she’s been seeking for years, where she can be with the man that the shadows will one day form again. The man she probably lost because of human stupidities. The man who made her create parallel dimensions and imaginary worlds to hide from human malice. The man who made her enter a whole new globe, a private land of avoidance. The woman still shouts inwardly for this man that has been only shadows for so long. The woman still craves for his presence. A woman is lost in a forest, one full of elements in which she can focus to reject the pain left by that man.

It isn’t a dream. A woman is lost in the fantasy of her dying beloved man. A woman is lost in hope. She does not fear. She does not look forward. She waits for the man to be there, to discharge her from whatever makes her fall back. She seeks for the man to be there, to discharge her from the forest where she gets lost.