there is no hiding inside the passage of time

The ache is bone deep. Nova’s eyes fixed on the page. Tapah, in Sanskrit, meant both “involuntary pain experienced by the senses” and “voluntary control of the senses.” An itch was like that, it had a way of summoning such opposing forces. Scratching is so abrasive, so demeaning, so unforgiving, that it forced her to embody a sort of convoluted self restraint. She dug deep within her psyche to stop her nails from digging deep into her flesh with austerity fit for a saint. The walls in her room began their normal chanting; it’s what awoke her each day at the 4am hour. The hour of vata. The hour of wind. Today she was already up by the time they started, awoken by The Great and Final Test in which the object of her senses was not the rancid smell of dead rat beneath her pillow like last week, or unceasing photopsia every other blink like the week prior. Dysgeusia was nothing new to her already stoic taste buds that sat like perfect lotus flowers on her tongue, and Tinnitus had begun to sound like music to her ears. Not by smell, or sight, or taste, or sound was she awoken, but by the sense so often overlooked, The Great and Final Test was discomfort produced by feeling. Discomfort produced by sensation itself.

By the company of the fading moon, she sat staring at her own handwriting, choppy and erratic like waves. The ache is bone deep… Her pen added three careful dots as if queuing her to go on, it’s important that I sleep. The phrase played like a nursery rhyme in her head over and over again. The ache is bone deep… she released herself from her stupor and took a deadened step towards her bed, it’s important that I sleep. On the ache within the next cadence her left foot caught up with it’s leading counterpart, but as it landed, and the word deep played silently amongst the perpetual tinnitus ringing, and as the walls chanted their morning prayer, she was stung with an itch so harrowing, so impossibly human, so violent, that she fell to the floor in agony. Now the silent voice within her paused between each word for the voice-that-could-be-heard to cry out in pain. It’s *gasp* important *moan* that I *gasp* sleep. And with the silent “p” that was never spoken, as if she were granted peace by god watching, her fall to the floor in agony sent her falling into a longed for cavernous sleep.

The next day revealed itself in repentance, as if an invisible artist was painting over a canvas of night with the redeeming colors of sunrise. Nova awoke on the floor with her arm pillowed beneath her head. Unaware of it yet, she had slept for over fifty hours. Her arms unfolded themselves and pressed the ground with an unexpected strength. The itchiness that had consumed her so thoroughly was now nothing but a passing cloud of memory. Her phone lit up, 44 missed calls

“Jesus chrysler” she whispered the phrase with embarrassing seriousness. She had adopted it from her partner, Rian, subconsciously, and not until this moment did she realize how absurd it sounded. But before she could begin down the decent of discovering the source of this neologism, if you could even call it that, she needed to call Rian back. The phone had barely rang once before they picked up, just as Nova began to wonder at what frequency the ringing was toned to,

“Nova, jesus fuck, where have you been?” Their voice oscillated between anger and relief.

“Hi, hi, sorry, uh, I was asleep I think.” She responded

“Asleep? What do you mean? I haven’t heard from you in two days.” Now their voice exuded a trickle of annoyance.

“I don’t know Rian I just woke up, I’m confused, what time is it?”

“It’s like 8am, I’m on my way to work, do I need to come get you?” A pause, then “What’s going on?” Nova could here pity begin to surface in their questions.

“No, no, I’m fine. I’m sick, the flu I think.” A new itching began to gestate in her stomach, or was it her throat? Both lit up at the same time with warning. “Do you know anything about the pitch that the phone ringing is toned to?” She heard her own voice from some far away place before fully processing what she was asking, almost as if someone else had been speaking. Quickly, she added “I think I had a dream about it”

“Sounds like you’ve been having some wild fever dreams, girl. I’m coming over after work to check on you, drink some water in the meantime please and check you’re temperature, if it’s triple digits call me back, okay?”

Out of habit, she agreed. What was she supposed to do? Her attempt to dismiss the events of the last two days as dreams, as if dreams appear from nowhere and not our very own storehouse of beliefs, was regrettable. But how regrettable can something be when there is seemingly no other choice? Even to the most obliging ears there was no reasoning with the way of her becoming reality. The talk of repeating numbers, and chanting walls, and a very specific hertz of ringing that found her so long ago…Not a voice of words but of frequency that spoke to her through disease and dials and in plaster on the ceiling. How could she say how the voice enthralled within her a desire to unravel her skin into something new, something cleaner, something much denser than bones?

She could feel the finality of choice conjuring her discernment. A choice now, to be made. A choice that all who are tested develop the taste for again and again. And her taste buds were peaceful, like lotus flowers whose petals stay untarnished despite their roots anchored in mud. So peaceful that up until this moment she had been able to swallow choices without dirtying her tongue. She could eat a feast of choices and bypass even the agitation of fullness afterwards. Choices not weighed, nor digested, hardly cooked and barely swallowed, never considering that the outcome of this choice could be much more detrimental than the last, like feeding bullets to a gun. Really though, what could be done? Even if Mahakala himself were to permit a passage within time for her to tuck herself into, even if it were possible to fully transcend into liminality and hide from the taste of choices, to mute the sound of walls and phones calling, even if her eyes immersed fully in light, and the smell of death was indistinguishable from that of bodies breathing.

The ache is bone deep, it’s time to step outside.

The voice within her was right, she needed the friendly touch of earth on her feet. A glass of water was poured, a glass half full and half empty, both were true. A magnolia tree that stood a few feet passed her front door had begun it’s seasonal bloom, the sight of it enhanced the smell of daphne circulating the air. To desensitize the itch of living meant to leave behind all else that lived. Her mind filled with clarity, and she understood why the phrase was “filled with” and not “emptied.” With her toes pressing into the cold dirt, and making sure to taste each drip of sweetness and grief, she lifted the glass of water to her lips.