“I love you, Matt,” Alie said trembling. “Please come back to me.”
Alie looked up and found the nurse no longer standing next to her, but on the other side of Matt’s bed. Her face glowed with a soft radiance that remained even after Alie wiped away her tears in an effort to bring the room back into focus.
“Is…he going to be okay?” Alie asked.
“He is in good hands, my Lady,” replied the nurse. Her emerald eyes sparkled as she spoke and Alie felt a warmth well up from within.
Alie squeezed Matt’s hand as her breath quickened. She attempted to grasp the situation before her—the nurse, Matt…and another presence? What’s happening to me?
She felt the hairs on the back of her neck bristle at the strange feeling of being watched from behind. The nurse smiled again with a radiance too bright for the fluorescence descending from the ceiling. She nodded once toward Alie’s left.
Alie slowly peered over her left shoulder. There, just outside of the white orb surrounding them, sat the silhouette of a man on a chair with staff in hand; dazzling green eyes that pierced the darkness of the room.
“Yeor!” Alie gasped.
24
OF MATTHEW: ROOM 412
I had to step out. The operating room was just too much for me to bear, especially when I saw them shove the catheter in me! God, I hope that doesn’t hurt when it comes out.
I waited. Time seemed to be nonexistent now. Doctors, nurses, and some others that I had no idea what they did shuffled past me in the hallway. All appeared to be on some life or death mission. Of course, it’s the emergency room corridor, just beyond where the surgery was taking place. I should expect the rush and the hustle and bustle of it all.
I stood watching, listening, it was all—everything—surreal. Something blared over the intercom, and immediately two nurses bolted out of a room to my right, almost at a sprint toward the double doors to my left that led to the emergency room—the doors swung open and they disappeared into the brightly lit ER that glistened from the high luster sheen of the hospital floor. The doors swung closed, and all was briefly quiet again.
Hours passed by. I stood patiently at the entrance to surgery. I could’ve gone back in but I just couldn’t watch—especially after that catheter insertion; that just gave me the creeps. I heard a doctor talking to another that a piece of scalp needed to be removed and a hole drilled. What the hell?! No…it was best that I waited outside.
The doors finally opened. A nurse at the head of the gurney acted as the guide and tugged on the head rail, and the nurse at the foot pushed. The two steered around corners and brought the pram to a stop at the elevator doors. The nurse at the head pushed the up button to remind the elevator that business needed to be conducted at this floor. We waited.
Since everyone conveniently ignored me, I kept my mouth shut and just followed. They had tight blue jumpsuits on, blue booties covering their shoes, hairnets, and surgical masks dangling around their necks. They both looked exhausted though, and I felt bad for both. Pram? I don’t know. Gurney? No clue. Looked like an oversized hospital bed that was loaded down with all sorts of machines and contraptions that blinked, chimed and…breathed.
We made our way to the ICU ward and rolled into room 412. The nurses made a few pivots with the bed; pushed here, pulled there, and then they locked the wheels in place. One made sure the head was slightly elevated; the other fiddled with some sort of tube placed in my skull. I stepped to the side and peered over. I was shocked.
A petcock! She was messing with a petcock! A petcock on the tube that had been inserted into my skull during surgery! The tube ran from there to a container that looked like a Mason jar under the bed. Clear fluid—looked like water—drained into the container. She nodded and turned the valve off.
After a few more adjustments with the machines, indicators, hoses, drip valves, and a few applications of clear tape over a problematic IV tube, they said something to each other, that I couldn’t hear, and they silently left the room.
There I was. Face to face…with myself.
I don’t remember much after we got attacked—except for a short instance of excruciating pain in the back of my head after I got hit—but I do remember bits and pieces in the helicopter as we flew into St Anthony Hospital. I’m pretty sure the weather was clear, but it seemed as though I was looking through a fog bank when I opened my eyes.
The fog lifted in the surgery room. That’s when all became clear. And that damn catheter. I hope I’m not awake when that thing gets yanked out. But then I might be dead as far as I know.
I’ve heard of people who’ve died, and come back—they stand over themselves like I’m doing now. I look like hell. I wonder what caused the bruising around the eyes? And that doesn’t look good either—a ventilator? Great. Life support? Jesus. Who knows what’s goin’ on?
Speaking of…what now? I stood there looking down on myself until I felt a presence.
I jumped slightly back after I looked up. Where did she come from? A nurse looking right at me. This was the first person that actually acknowledged me since I got here.
She stood amidst the cables, IV lines, and other medical equipment that cluttered the right side of the bed. There was so much gear there, I could barely look past it all in order to see the nurses’ station through the large pane glass windows. Now this nurse snuck into my room and began staring at me through all the gadgets.
She smiled at me. Her face had a soft radiance to it, and her smile brought comfort to the storm of anxiety and confusion that was swirling inside of me. A storm that I thought was going to crash in on me at any moment and I had no idea what to expect next. Maybe I’m not dead.
Then it struck me. As I studied her eyes, there was something familiar in them. Her green eyes sparkled in the darkness of the room and were soul-searching. I felt like she was reading everything in me. Everything!
She held me in a trance, fixed with her eyes. I couldn’t move and I felt so exposed, naked, and even ashamed. Who is this? Why do I feel this way? My feet were like stone pillars, my hands would not move, and I couldn’t turn my head when I heard a familiar voice call out my name.
Trish came in, and after she spoke my name I couldn’t hear the rest of what she was saying. This nurse continued to hold me with her gaze; my eyes remained fixed on her after she let my insides go. That letting go felt like when you grab your arm tight and then release it, you can feel all the blood start to flow again.
I was finally able to turn to my left as Trish was leaving the room. That’s when I noticed the sheriff and undersheriff standing at the foot of my bed, looking at my sleeping body. They only stayed for a few minutes.
“Matthew,” her voice called to me, but I didn’t notice her lips moving.
I looked back into her green, dazzling eyes that seemed to cast a glow over the room. I had the overwhelming feeling of bowing down to this…nurse. I couldn’t stand any longer and slowly went to one knee under the sensation of standing in the presence of someone far greater than I.
“Child, take this and continue.” She motioned with one hand to stand back up, and her other held out my notebook, my journal. How the…she had my journal!?
I felt my face contort due to the puzzle my brain was trying to work out: here, in a hospital room, standing next to me, is a nurse holding my journal.
“Write, the things you hear, see, and the travels you pass,” she spoke to me, but I did not see her lips move once. “Whether you live or die, others after you will find hope, solace, and guidance.”
“Quickly, we must leave at once,” said a gruff voice to my left as I felt a vise like grip take hold of my elbow. Startled is an understatement. I yelled and spun around, and came face to face with the gruff voice and unyielding grip: Yeor.
“Whoa!”
“No time,” Yeor insisted—his green eyes flashed and he picked up the pace as he escorted me out of the room.
I didn’t know my adrenalin gland worked anymore; it spi
ked hard—you know that feeling that sends you through the roof when someone jumps out from around a corner at you. I looked back, and the nurse was now standing at the head of the hospital bed that my body was lying on, watching us intently as we rounded the corner.
We veered to the left and hurried down the corridor. I noticed Trish was speaking with a doctor on the far side of the nurses’ station, and my adrenalin spiked once more when I turned my attention forward, it was Alie.
She was standing still and peering around the corner of the hallway at Trish and the doctor. Her hair was matted and it looked like she’d been crying—still stifling tears with a tissue. I longed to embrace her, to take the pain away—whatever it was—to hold her…
“Not now,” hissed Yeor as he kept dragging my left elbow with his iron grip.
The moment we walked past Alie, she stood up from peeking around the corner, and at the same time, the doctor and Trish glanced our way.
We came to the double doors of the elevator. I truly thought I was dead but the fact that Yeor extend his index finger to activate the down button to summon the elevator car was somewhat a relief. Then we waited. If I were dead, why not just walk thru the doors to wherever he was in a hurry to?
“No more delays,” ordered Yeor.
I didn’t say a word. Journal in hand and being forcefully led to this point by Yeor himself was warping my brain. I looked back down the hallway we just hustled out of and saw Alie tiptoeing into my room.
Ding
The elevator doors swooshed opened.
“Where are we going?” I asked in between the gap when the doors opened and the short time before he shoved me into the elevator by my elbow.
“To the Land Between Realms,” he answered matter-of-factly.
“And what is—” was all I could say.
The lights went out, all became dark, and suddenly the floor felt like it dropped out from under us. I instinctively fell and hugged my knees in a fetal position. I’m sure it was a pathetic sight if the lights were to turn on.
My hands frantically felt around my feet and discovered that the elevator floor was still there. We were free falling in a dark elevator car.
“Get up,” Yeor ordered in a deep tone.
“I’m freaked out,” I yelled back.
“What does it matter?” his tone was flat, completely unaffected by what was transpiring. “Trust, accept, and get up!” the sage bellowed back at me.
My stomach was doing somersaults and my knees felt fixed in place. Panic seized me the moment the lights went out. I slowly stood up, shaking, as the elevator car rushed downwards toward certain death.
The moment I stood, the falling sensation instantly stopped. No crash, no sensation of my guts sloshing around…we just stopped.
A dim light began to creep in toward our feet from all around us. As it became brighter, I could see Yeor was watching every movement I made while I frantically looked around us; searching for something familiar: nothing—the elevator, the doors, the hospital, all replaced with—
“Accept, Sire,” he instructed again. “The moment you do, the turmoil ceases, the confusion flees like the darkness at daybreak, and you will have poise and balance.”
I stood there, amazed and dumbfounded. That actually made sense, but I couldn’t grasp the—
“Accept, Matthew…it allows one to live in the present. The past can be the conduit of regrets; the future, the conduit of anxiety. Now is what you are blessed with, do not miss the Now…”
“Okay, but that doesn’t—” I attempted.
“Accept…” he interrupted me again, held up his index finger in the air with one hand, and with his other index finger placed against his pursed lips, “Accepting is not ignoring what needs to be done, it acknowledges what has been done—a release from both the regret and the anxiety. It brings poise and balance inside, while a storm rages outside.”
He finished and gazed at me. Those eyes seemed to search every nook and cranny, although not quite as intense as the nurse’s, but uncomfortable nonetheless.
I blinked and looked away a few times. Then tears. I have no blasted idea why I started to tear up, but once I started I found that I couldn’t stop. Why?
“Let it cleanse you, my friend,” Yeor stated in a tone of concern, love, and pity. It hit me hard. The pain and frustration came to the surface so fast I felt like I was drowning in my own emotions.
Overwhelmed, I fell to my knees and bawled like a baby. Thoughts of being a failure consumed my being. I was gasping for air, sobbing and wheezing, searching for breath.
“Accept…” he intoned.
It swept over me, thoughts of failing my parents, failing in marriage, failing as a leader, and failing in every aspect of my life. My shoulders pitched forward as the current washed over me, consumed with the weeping; fueled by the thoughts of every aspiration I had not attained, to the fear of moving on in life.
When I finally stopped crying, I found myself on my hands and knees; snot trailed to the ground from my face and the world was a blur of greens, blues, and browns. I gasped and cleared my throat. My stomach hurt and I felt dizzy. I sat back on my haunches. My eyes hadn’t adjusted yet, everything was a blur; vertigo set in, which gave me the unnerving sensation of slowly rotating.
I looked down in an attempt to find something to focus on: a rock, a shrub, a blade of grass, anything to help stop the spinning, but it was useless. I looked to my right and saw the sand and rock beginning to cave inward, creating a fissure in the ground. I saw clumps of blurred green and brown blotches falling inside the black crevice—my world being sucked into the bowels of the earth.
“No!” roared Yeor and he yanked on my shoulder, pulling me quickly to his side.
The fracture subsided and began to be filled in by the surrounding earth that had not yet fallen in. Soon, the cavity was filled and there was no longer a tear in the ground; the vertigo came to an abrupt halt. Confused, I looked at him for a moment.
“Yeor…” I finally said.
“Yes.”
“What is this place?” I asked as I went through the motions of cleaning up my face without the luxury of having a tissue on hand.
“This is the Land Between Realms,” Yeor explained, while looking into the distance, which was still a blur to me. “It’s a land that connects the two realms: the Waking Realm—where you and mankind inhabit cognitively—and that of Oneiron. The Realm of Oneiron is the realm whereby men enter into their dreams; yet they are not aware of its reality. The Land Between Realms binds both together, however each Realm breathes on its own; yet one can not exist without the other.”
Not much of what he said made any sense. I was worn out. It felt like every muscle had just gone through convulsions and I was in no mood for riddles. The good thing for the moment was that my eyes were beginning to focus, at least on things nearby, but all remained a blur in the distance.
“And—“ he abruptly stopped. He stared at me, now seated on a fallen tree with his hands hung loosely between his knees, he leaned forward, “…by the Maker…Matthew, you struggle with belief of such a place.”
“Yes,” I shifted around to get off my knees to sit in the soft dirt. Fine granules that made the soil beneath me feel like a soft and pristine beach, and the shallow depression we sat in was surrounded by clumps of grass. “Yes, I’m struggling. All of this, it’s almost too much to handle.”
He continued to stare at me without flinching, without blinking, and it felt like he was staring through me…again. I propped my forearms on my knees as I sat there silently, being scrutinized.
“Believing has nothing to do whether the sun rises or sets. You are here. You are now fully aware of a place that has existed from the beginning. You feel it, you’ve tasted Oneiron’s mead and are now sitting in a pile of dirt in a place that binds the two realms together. And…” he lifted his brows as he paused, “…you have felt the sting of the blade of an enemy that wishes to destroy you, and both realms.”
&n
bsp; “Is there something in the Waking that confirms all this?” The moment the words slipped out of my mouth, I knew I had stumbled all over myself.
“A sign?” Yeor bellowed. He gave a heavy sigh, closed his eyes, and tilted his head slightly upward while moving his lips without making another sound.
“Well…” I started, but stopped. Pointless to go on arguing about a place I’m sitting in. Changes, new places, that’s one thing, but a whole different reality is quite something—
“Matthew,” Yeor continued and then opened his dazzling eyes at me, “the Waking Realm is dependent upon Oneiron. You have never heard ‘as in heaven, so in earth’?”
He relaxed his posture, sighed, and said, “Oneiron is also dependent upon the Waking Realm. Whether you believe this, or not, it makes no difference in reality.”
Yeor bent down and drew in the dirt with his finger. I felt a breeze kick up. The smell of an ocean wafted under my nose. I looked around at the surroundings beyond our sunken meeting place and all remained out of focus. I blinked, shook my head, and even wiped at my eyes again; still blurry.
“Is it just my eyes, or is everything blurry here?”
“Yes.”
“Yeor, my head hurts. My stomach is sore from crying—and I have no idea why—and my neck is so stiff that—” and again, he interrupted me; I hate being interrupted!
“Yes to both. Waking man is always looking for a sign. It clouds the vision. Always searching for the thing that will point to a spectacular revelation and yet, the path, the revelation, the answer, has always been there. The path is already stood upon, the revelation given to the heart, and the question already answered.
“To accept, my King,” at this, he looked up from doodling, and his gaze pierced me, “…is not only to confess that you are on the path already, but that you realize you can not change the past with wishful thinking, nor can you change the future with anxiety. And to truly see, you must forgive, especially…yourself.”
Stunned, I sat there. Yeor stood up and I noticed he didn’t have his staff with him. He folded his hands together and stood looking intently at me. After a few moments, I dropped my eyes to the dirt.
Shadows of Reality (The Catharsis Awakening Book 1) Page 18
