Vision Unforced

Vision Unforced

A storm stricken night passed leaving a morning, wet with the passing god's fury long abated. Surely somewhere in a distant land, a rooster crowed, waking a family of farmers to another day of toil.  At this location, however, no sound resounded to wake the man that sat inert in front of his television.  He had only been unmoving for minutes.  His eyes fluttered away from a forgotten dream before rising lazily to the static at which he had been staring before he had slept, even if only for a brief moment.  The snowy screen called out to the man.  There was something there to be seen.  It was a pattern formed by the greatest divine presence.  The man knew this, and he watched, waiting to be given the gift of understanding.  The man slept no more on that day.

He waited through the day, hoping his eyes could close to some genuine sleep.  Destiny, though, is an unkind and unrelenting reality we all must face.  Some get more rest than others.  He thought thousands of times about moving away from the filtered hiss of nothing, but knew that if he did, that would mean the end to his quest.  It would have been a failing end, and this the man could not accept.

The sun shone brightly through a window behind his couch, clouding his view in light.  This was no distraction to him though.  His stomach rumbled in protest to his refusal to move; he paid the sound no heed.  The pain was a necessary obstacle- an inconvenience afforded by evil to attempt to divert his chance to speak to something higher than himself or any other mortal being still existing on the planet.

His eyes never wavered from heaviness.  The shifting blizzard on the screen continued to snow.

The moon rose behind the open blinds behind his television before disappearing behind the tapestries hung lazily behind it.  Then the vanishing began.  First it was his end tables.  Then his coffee table existed no more.  Soon enough, there was no stand holding the portal upon which he had been focused.  Then the couch upon which he had been laying was gone, and he was horizontal on the floor.  Windows and walls were gone.  His existence melted into nothingness.

The blizzard began to shift perceptively, and he did not notice a knock at the door.  His mother worried outside.  He never knew.  He never thought of anything as the thousands of white blips that were all of his existence bubbled into something more than what it had been.  His perseverance was being paid in full, and the man knew nothing of that as well.  The hissing took shape in his ear.  The shifty white cubes spoke to his eyes.

"The world will not forgive itself.  Nor will any single person accept their duties in this life.  Those that do, do so out of selfishness, not selflessness.  True freedom exists only when one has rejoined the cosmos from whence they came."

The man resisted and his eyes shot open to a flurry of familiar sights.  He chose to believe that there was no truth to his prior vision.  "There is unrelenting good in this world," he said to himself and the world he was trying to understand.

Whether death was the answer or not, the man knew that the greatest truths would never hide behind generalized honesties.

Suddenly, the white screen shifted and took a snakelike shape working its way out of an aquarium in which it had been trapped.  Its body still shimmered in the ever-shifting snows of an unknown television station.  The wriggling shape warped into something more tangible that was still unknowable.  The indescribable charmed its way to within inches of the man's face.  It remained, cocking its "head" as though inspecting him.  Then it spoke.

"You would like to see the truth hidden in the lies.  In a lie, there is no truth.  You want to be happy with your sadness.  In sadness, there can be no happiness.

"You want the reality in the falsity of this life.  In falsity, there can be no reality.  What is, is.  What is not, is not.

"You want answers that no one has.  However, you are someone.  Those answers are not yours to have.

"You would like some internal connection with ME.  For that, my brave soul, you must look inside of yourself, for the brightest spark of the greatest being lies within you.  It is my greatest gift to all of my children.

"You want simple resolution.  But no ending will ever be simple.

"Arise, and let yourself be content with the greatness that has been allotted to you."

In his bed, the man's eyes opened.