Hate is for the Faint of Heart

White walls, white chairs, white gowns, white noise. Melissa sat cross-legged on a single bed, on cool, silk sheets, sea surf emanating from a little grey speaker on the bedside table. A long glass of water sat atop it, clear and pure, enclosing the white walls, chairs, gowns in this reflective and rippling universe.

Melissa took a sip.

“Are you sleepy?” asked Nora.

Melissa nodded, adjusting her eye mask.

“Yield. We need you in Theta to bypass the left hemisphere.”

Nora leaned back in her chair, running a bare foot through the fluffy, white carpet. She tuned into the sea surf, into the crashing, into the lulling, and she could almost see the white crests of the waves, the ocean foam on the shoreline, a loose strand of seaweed drifting in and out with the tide. She glanced up at Melissa cross-legged on the bed, brow furrowed, mouth tense.

“Have you detected his frequency?” asked Nora, her voice a light, ocean breeze.

“No.”

“Breathe.”

Nora watched as Melissa’s chest swelled, as her brow unbound itself, as her mouth relaxed. She’d find him. Their energy fields had become entrained upon collision and would thus respond irrespective of the distance. She’d find him, but only if she could bypass the left hemisphere, if she could achieve Hemi-Sync.

Melissa took a deep breath and eased into the white noise; her consciousness surfed through the varying frequencies—small waves, calm waves, rough waves, storms—as though fingering through archives: vibrating, translucent archives.

“You must achieve the same frequency and amplitude of the wave, only then can you harmonise.”

“It’s somewhere,” murmured Melissa. “It screeches.”

“Keep looking.”

“But it hurts, it’s jarring.”

“You’ll have to match his frequency if you want access.”

Her mind expanded to engulf the screech, to flood it, to dampen it. It hurt less, it hurt less when she contained it within her own energy.

“We need your energy in homogeneity with his,” said Nora. “Containing it won’t work.”

Melissa’s body slackened and her wrists lay limp on the bed beside her knees. There it was; his frequency was a tempest in a teapot, turbulent but tiny from above. As she attuned her own frequency to his, the unreined chaos fell about her like a tidal wave, the dissonance screeched like a microphone.

Melissa whimpered and her shoulders shot up to shield her ears; she released, she let go of the wave, and her head lolled. The scream subsided, a receding ocean, and the sea surf inundated her consciousness once more. White walls, white chairs, white gowns, white noise. She was back.

“How did it sound?” asked Nora.

“Piercing, discordant.”

“You must match it if you seek revenge.”

“But it’s not so small once you’re in it.”

“Therein lies the danger.”

The danger, the danger of succumbing to those lower energies, of drowning in that teapot.

Melissa inhaled and imagined her energy gather in her core—surging, surging, surging—and as she exhaled, she opened the floodgates. The energy rushed through her in torrents—breathe in, breathe out—and then suddenly slowed, suddenly steadied, suddenly took shape. Fine streams of energy flowed through her like blood, and she dived back into the waves: small waves, calm waves, rough waves, storms.

Nora waited, her elbows on her knees, as she stared into this semi-conscious figure cross-legged on the bed, her brow twitching above her eye mask, her lips scowling below. She recalled when it was her, when it was her on that bed surfing those frequencies, when it was she who sought revenge.

“I can’t hear him,” said Melissa.

“Try colours.”

Melissa envisaged colours, projecting them into the vibrating darkness where they exploded and clung to the frequencies. Each wave appeared like evidence beneath fluorescent light, suddenly perceivable, a network of coloured thread extending through space. She was drawn to the pink thread, the blue thread, the green, but it was that dreadful black thread, barely perceivable, that quivered with a familiar chaos; it was the tempest in a teapot, that small tsunami.

“I found him.”

“Attune your frequency.”

Melissa lowered her vibration and imagined his energy shift into a cylinder like the tall glass of water on the bedside table. Then she flattened it, moulded it into a bowl, envisaged it widening, widening, widening into a sea.

“We’re resonating,” she said between gritted teeth.

A grumbling in the sea’s belly, a roar, a wobbling frequency.

“You’re in consonance?”

A crashing of waves, the dissonant clashing of violin strings? a screeching crescendo.

Nora, in the calm heart of sea surf, studied Melissa’s hunched shoulders, pulsating jaw, tormented brow.

Melissa was elsewhere; she’d broken the surface. She was plunged into his soul as though into the depths of the ocean, a rocket of white expanding above her. It was suddenly quiet, and as the last bubble popped, darkness reclaimed this empty infinity, no, this infinite emptiness. Melissa’s legs kicked gently beneath her, her arms sculling. She glanced around and saw but barren blackness, heard but the echo of silence, the echo of silence penetrated by the watery swish of her limbs. She’d made it. They’d fused into a single energy continuum. But was this all there was?

Darkness stretched out in all directions, but Melissa couldn’t determine its dimensions. It could be a box, a room, a field of darkness, a boat, a ship, a fleet, and she wouldn’t know the difference for she couldn’t see her own two hands. Was she confined or stranded? Either way, she felt small. No, she felt titanic.

This void was brimming with a palpable nothingness, and if anything could be both full and empty, it was this, it was this very darkness. It was as heavy as a stage curtain, suffocating, claustrophobic; and yet it was light, airy, open. But whichever it was, full or empty, this darkness and its confused vacuity sent a shiver up Melissa’s spine. Was this his soul? Was this his life?

She could hear but the watery swish of her limbs, the hollow heaviness of her breathing.

Cold, empty, full, drowning?

A tiny flash of purple, so small she could have missed it. A tiny jellyfish bobbed before Melissa’s eyes, its bell transparent, its tentacles imperceptible. There was another flash of purple luminescence as it floated upward, and Melissa watched with her head tilted back, mesmerised. In the blink of an eye, the jellyfish rejoined the darkness and its glow evanesced. It was a glimmer of hope! there was still some soul left to lose! Or had she imagined it? She glanced around and found but darkness, dissonance, doubt, and heard but the watery swish of her limbs.

Nora yawned and straightened up in her chair; this sea surf could very well put her to sleep. She pushed back her cuticles and nibbled at the skin. Any minute now. Any minute now Melissa would resurface, no longer bent on revenge, just like the others, just like herself. Agony would replace anger; and love, hatred.

Melissa stirred and gasped for air.

She’d managed to extricate herself quite quickly, thought Nora, rising and crossing the room. White walls, white chairs, white gowns, white noise.

“Did you exact revenge?” said Nora.

“No.”

“Drink,” said Nora, holding the glass to Melissa’s lips.

She took a sip, clear and pure, a sip of this reflective and rippling universe.

“Allow me,” said Nora, and she removed Melissa’s mask, revealing wide and watery eyes.

Melissa sunk back into the white cushions, exhausted, irresponsive, in shock.

An instant,

two,

three.

And then it hit her like a wave: her body shuddered and she began to wail.

Nora turned up the sea surf and returned to her chair, running her bare foot through the fluffy carpet. She tuned out those familiar cries, and yielded to the sea surf, the crashing, the lulling. She breathed through her empathy, observed it, and let it go. Everyone wanted revenge, everyone wanted revenge until they’d felt the other’s soul.