Revelation

 

Revelation

She lived her days in the small bowl of existence within his hands, breathing life in the clear water he offered her dry lips. The outside world filtered in sounds through plywood boards, and the sky was a sliver of blue that varied to gray colorless light before darkening. He would sometimes come in the darkness, shattering the heavy silence with a whispered word that wove illusion and tightened her chest until breathing became a forced, thick motion of slow suffocation. Sometimes he did not come for what seemed an eternity. The nights had been the worst. Without the sliver of sky, without the blue, she had no focus. It was the world before time. It was the beginning of her creation, when there was nothing but the wetness of sweat and stench, and she was still being formed. The numbness of waiting moved in waves. At first it had been unbearable, but slowly her body forgot its needs and resigned itself to the allowable, adjusting to his extremes. Her hatred for him turned to desperate dependence and his absence to torture.

Sometimes he brought the scent of flowers which clung to her senses as his hands moved over her, soap-silky and languid, touching and cleaning her while she reeled from the shock of movement, overwhelmed. Small rewards were pressed to her lips which she took from his fingers, savoring the sweet moisture against her dry throat while craving water to the point of madness. Water came only with the sliver of blue sky, as did food. As she weakened, it was sometimes a blurred stretch of time between the darkness and the patch of light, but his presence merged the two and left her senseless, confused in the cycles, gratefully accepting whatever his fingers pressed to her lips. At first, she had cried and it was bitter offerings ground against her teeth and forced into her throat, choked by his fingers. Now she did not cry, and it was sweet, soft fragrant things he gave her. When her mind would register, she would try to remember the names for the taste.... peach, melon, apple.... although the names no longer mattered, they were so small and fleeting in flavor. Identification was limited to light and dark, wet and dry, pain and pleasure, silence and sound. Sound included his footsteps, his breathing, his voice and the tones that clearly marked pleasure and pain. It included the splash of water being poured, which was dripped to her lips and which she sucked from his fingers as he dipped them again and again, trickling it slowly to her tongue to avoid choking. Food he tore into small pieces, feeding her with his fingers and stroking her hair approvingly as she forced herself to swallow, wanting only more water but knowing she must accept what he gave her before she would get more to drink. Small things to learn, these basics of survival, had become natural now.

He spoke quietly during these moments, words that enveloped her, passed through her, things that were beyond comprehension but lingered in the mind, slowly forming into thoughts in the empty silences. "I am the Living Water, to which there is no thirst thereafter," as she licked his fingers, slowly registering these words to deeply etched impressions. Was not truly God the same? The creator, the giver of life, as surely as he gave her life, as he fed her and cared for her.... "Who am I?" whispered in the midst of her confusion, with no answer offered. Blinded by the scarf tied carefully in his presence, the darkness bore the truths, and she was limited to sense rather than what visual lies the eyes behold. "Who am I?" was slowly asked, expectant silence following while her fear grew steadily. This she failed time and time again and was once more left alone, bound and achingly still, while the world waited. You are my Lord, You are Mercy, You are He Who Provides.... You are Life Offered and Love Given, You are Discipline and Shame.......

No, my beloved..... I am none of these.

Time became muddy. It slipped in spirals, sometimes seeming to reverse. It would linger unmoving, then slide past her in racing minutes that fluctuated like a sick heartbeat. He lingered even when he was gone..... Sometimes he was there without ever being there... Which was real? She slept. She sank into it, lulled and comforted, and nothing could touch her then. The water was a dream, the food not important. He came. He left. There was no such thing as time, only breaths and dreams and a touch, an absence.... He came and wavered, fading. He came and spoke words that made no sense.

She had closed her eyes, for only a moment it seemed now, and he was there again..... his wet fingers at her lips, and she touched them with her tongue, feeling the hard smooth edge of a cup pressed to her mouth, a small stream washing over her tongue which would not register to swallow, running instead from her lips down her neck. She already knew now--the way his hand cupped her head, the restraints loosening, and the sound of his voice as she was taken into his arms for the first time. Her own limbs felt bent and unnaturally posed as he cradled her. The Gentle One. The Loving One. There was no sliver of blue, yet the water spilled through her lips again, and his voice continued with a quiet urgency. She closed her mind to it, smiling, knowing.... No, my beloved, I am none of these. Willing her lips to move, she found voice, answering in a weak whisper the past question of floating confusion that was clear now, as clear as the sliver of sky to her memory, "You are my killer," and quietly slid into the welcoming blackness that shut it all out.