A desert surrounded her. Her feet were bare and burning on the scorching sand. The sand crawled in between her toes and the blistering air baked her skin. It was dark and peeling, with a tint of red. Her lips were cracked and her mouth was dry. She raised her head and stared into the sun. Her eyes closed instinctively and she breathed in heavily. As she breathed out, she felt a power rush through her. She heard it amplified in her head and it rang in her ears. The air was no longer still and silent. It picked up suddenly and she did not move. the sand sunk from all around her and she fell. At first it was in slow motion. The sand was all around her, in her mouth, in her hair… on her hands and skin. She was staring down below, her eyes dry and unable to close. The end came faster and faster. Then black. She opened her eyes and stood up. The sand was still falling on her and she felt nothing. She heard shrill sounds. Each, individual drop of the million grains of sand falling around and on her. The ground was still burning but she did not burn. She looked at the sun and focused. She lifted her arm and the sand sifted off… she was alive. She was different. She was going to be unstoppable. She just didn’t know it yet.
My eyes stung intensely. They felt like a thousand needles were stabbing them. Ask me how it happened and I could not tell you how. I do not know if it was shock from the icy water, or if some other force was blocking my memory until that point. All I know is that I was standing on a frozen lake and that I had fallen through. Naturally, I was not prepared. In situations such as those, it is humanly impossible to think clearly. My mind was going a million miles an hour, in a million different directions. So many questions I’d never answered, so many things I’d meant but never said. I’ve never been in a situation where my life was endangered, and I’d never have known it would be so frightening. I blacked out. I saw visions of my past, and even possibly visions of my future. Attempting to determine the difference between the two was futile at this point, and I did not try. I saw my mother’s face first. Warm and gentle, cradling me. I saw our old house, the one with the red door. My mind flashed back memories from my whole life, things I had forgotten. Then suddenly I saw a man. I saw his shadow above the ice, with me drowning beneath him. I gasped, and choked in as a last attempt to stay alive. Much to my surprise, I took a breath underwater. I blew out again, and watched a million tiny bubbles dance their way to the surface. As I followed them with my eyes, I watched as the shadow reached out his hand to me, and as he did, I reached out too. For the split second I held his hand, I was in total confusion and abyss. In one single motion, he pulled me through the ice. Caught in my dizziness, I grabbed my head and fell to the ground, on my side. I was unable to properly function. When it wore off, I opened my eyes to find myself completely and utterly alone.
She is laying perfectly still. Staring at her reflection in the clear, now lukewarm water. She moves only slightly, and I watch as the water gently ripples across her body. When she breathes in, it streams down from her chest, filling every crevice… the place from which she was given life. It hugs her sides when she moves, critiques and compliments her physique. It seems like the tide, It rises and falls across her china doll skin like the sea rises and falls against a sandy beach. White, and milky under the water. Water. It gives her a feeling of familiarity, warmth. Completely surrounding her, she feels beautiful. Flaws disclosed, curves intensified. She is beautiful. Beautifully imperfect.
She shivered suddenly from head to toe, as though foreign blood was embed into her veins, and her body was rejecting it. My moment of pure happiness and peace was disturbed as she rose to dry herself off. But I never forgot it. She is my own Bathsheba. Mine and only mine to watch, and to love from afar. Yet it is torture, I cannot even touch her. I long to feel her skin… trace my fingers across her. Memorize her.
How much longer can I take this?
Seeing one’s self in their very own eyes, without the assistance of a mirror or anything like it, is quite frightening. I think no one could describe it properly, even less describe the intensity of it. A complete and accurate description would, surely, not be possible. There are some who can keep an integrated mind, through such an event. The question as to “who can or can’t” will remain a question, until the situation can arise to prove otherwise. Nothing is sure or true unless it has been tested. For those who seem brave can cower at the sight of fear, while the ones who were once afraid realize that something must be done and they are quite capable of doing so. A mathematician could give you statistics, reasoning… odds. Unfortunately I am far from a mathematician, and cannot. One would think that something as trivial as seeing yourself should hardly be considered fearful or frightening. For those of you that do think in that way… Gather all of your hurts and joys, thoughts and spoken word, memories and ideas, your own flesh and blood. Think about not having the ability to do what you want to do. Not having the chance to tell people what you’d like them to know… show the world what you want to be seen. And while we’re on that subject…go the other direction. Think about what you don’t want people to know… what you don’t want the world to see. Think about not having the ability to control it and I think that the thought of it might be rather disturbing.