Let Go

I sat down before the shore smoking my remaining cigarette, while in my lap laid my beautiful girlfriend running her finger over my jawline. I had seen a tinge of pink and a hint of red make its way into the sky pushing the blue of the night out of sight. But my girlfriend there was so absorbed by my features that she forgot to capture the changes of the morning sky. Soon my cigarette came to an end and so did her stun. Having seen the golden yolk out in its full glory, she sprinted to her knees and lunged for her cam. Oh! how adorable it was to witness her inner child take control. These were the moments that I wanted to capture.

Knowing all well that it was useless to try and tame her I set all our gears back in the trunk alone and then called for her when I had realized that neither her eyes nor her camera could capture the raging sun anymore. We had started our journey back towards the city and were impatiently looking forward to getting our favorite Mac cheeseburgers. Although I had so much going on in my mind from the previous night, I had to be attentive to the tracks we were driving through. Mag was still busy clicking the scenic beauties. I could not understand her love for nature to any extent. Smiling to myself on her "little things", I sped the car a bit right-after which the open curve on the hill appeared. I remember Mag's screams and my head hitting the front mirror, but things blipped from then on.

x-x-x-x-x

I was falling. The darkness was consuming me. Was it a peephole that I was going down or a deep, deep wishing well. First, it was just the darkness but now it was strange peace and weightlessness that had enveloped me. Oh, oh how did I not see this coming… I am dead. So easily I was dead without sufferings! For reasons unbeknownst, the worries in my head seemed to have ebbed away. My mind and soul had adjusted to the stillness that was going to be my eternity rather abruptly.

It was funny that although I was dead and in the hereafter, I still had the recollection of my past life. Even more, funnier was the fact that this recollection of the closed-chapter was not tormenting at all. The last bit that I remember of my life was not pleasant but the fact that I was dead was. You want to know what a pleasant death is like?

I had the life most adventurous of all, but I made a wrong turn. And make a wrong turn you ever, awaits a perished fate for you or life's most magnanimous bounty of experiencing something divine. A typical hind-sided man that I was, had thought, my life; no less divine and bounty full, had just gone down a trash can. For what little life I had left, after the accident, would be spent in stillness anyway.

The last week of my life was spent on a hospital bed starring at the white blank wall while the nurses and doctors probed through my body wherever and whenever they wanted. Don't think I was happy about my death because I got to escape the painful bit. I was glad that I died because I pulled down a fragile, innocent soul with me in this ill-fated, hideous turn of events. I could not have beared to survive while she fought between life and death. Mon chéri deserved to live life to the fullest.

My peace slipped away. Was it the thought of her living a tarnished life while cursing myself every second of it? Cursing was fine with me, but a tarnished life for her wasn't. I shouldn't have taken her out with me on that deadly track.

I let my hands hang by my side and my feet straighten up. Then I lifted my face towards the sky though there was none. The peace and tranquility I felt in his hollow vacuum seemed to have been replaced by some disorder and chaos. I hung like an erect corpse in the middle of nowhere for a long while, keeping up with bizarre heartache. A desolate feeling bore a hole in my gut and I shrieked as mightily as I could. But I was mute. It led me to think about what I was amidst that daunting darkness. why did I even have feelings?

My eyes fluttered open. This time it wasn't all dark around me. Rather I was enveloped by a dirty mix of grey and pink or was it plain gray with specks of black. I couldn't be precise with colors at that moment but one lucid feeling caught me, "I wasn't entirely nothing".

As I moved back and forth between the thoughts of life and death the overall-shade around me changed from black to dirty teal pink while grey remained the intermediate shade. I was getting the hang of it now. Majorly my surroundings were grey, probably reflecting my most dominant notion. It was sickening though. My feelings won't leave me easy and the still shades around hung heavy on my nerves. Am I a delusional soul?

For my sanity's sake and to playback my unforgiving canvas of notions, I decided to think harder of death. The moment I got myself to believe that I was dead my aura went back to black which gave me a break. Feeling helpless is so much easier than facing your own cooked issues.

If it was up to me I'd live in that nothingness forever and ever, but some disruptions are meant to happen. I had been peacefully hanging in the dark when a streak of beautiful white patterns made its way into my aura. I did not mind watching the orchestra of colors as long as my feelings weren't associated with it. Therefore, I laid down flat on my back and surprisingly was stable, as if on a flying carpet. The patterns that my eyes witnessed were divine and startlingly decipherable. It was a lost soul trying to escape the ocean of nothingness. Encountering a thousand thoughts at once, persistent to unveil its existence. Did I even have a pattern ever?

The white dancing pattern had suddenly come to a halt. Had it come to the same conclusion as I? I had thought. Standing back up I swam my way through the darkness like a blind dolphin just to not lose control over my feelings. I did not want the darkness to leave me as yet. I swam listlessly on end when an unexpected hindrance occurred. A blinding white light came right in front of me not as a streak or a pattern but in form of a girl. It was… the pattern… she ...can't be Margret! Why was she here? Had I killed her? I fell to my knee and the aura turned mustard. I hated that my screams were mute. My anguish had to de heard!

Margret reached out to me swiftly while I laid shattered looking into her eyes. Soon after, I opened my mouth to speak, forgetting that I had no voice. There was a lump in my throat as well then. Thus, I tried speaking again, hoping to be heard,but only silence prevailed. It was then that I heard Margret say, no think actually; She had thought, "Get a hold on yourself, Dave! It's not what you think. Always the rational type you were!!". I instantly thought back, "What do you mean? Why are you here in the void with me? What's all this composure about?". On this Margret wore a rueful smile. She thought in response, "We are not dead.". I was at loss. If this wasn't death what was?

She took a meaningful pause and then continued, "We are very much alive, not far from death though. You just need to hear me out with a clear mind. YOU are in a good place but I am not.".

With that heard my aura turned red and I thought to her, "what did I do to you? Pray tell my love! I hate, hate myself for putting you there." She stayed put, silently listening to my thoughts. Then on a spur I thought-asked her, "can we switch places? I don't know where I am but it's peaceful here. Let ME fight your battles, Mag!". Margret with utter resolve thought again, "Will you let me finish for once?". Abashed, I nodded in agreement. My aura had then turned a beautiful shade of peach; the unfathomable language of colors I had thought.

Wearing a distant look Margret started, "You know we loved each other. And love we did truly, for our souls are inseparable even in subconsciousness. Your thoughts conjured me here DAVE. I was facing my grim reaper when I got pulled into this deadly hollow. And I am utterly glad I was! For this is the only way I could ever see you again." We were both unblinkingly gazing into each other's eyes. "You are not Dead. Nor will you be. I don't know why you are where you are, but trust me you will make it back to life. Your thoughts and feelings are intact. You are just not in your body or maybe stuck in limbo. I don't know exactly, But I know for sure that you'll be pulled back.". She was quiet now. I took it as my cue to think, "So now what? You have given up on yourself? I can't make it back knowing you won't be there! Can't you hold on a bit longer?". Seeing her hopeless, I thoughtfully added, "I will keep you conjured here in my thoughts. Yes, this will set things right!".

Unexpectedly, Margret took a step towards me and opened wide her arms. Full of mirth, I lunged and accepted her embrace. To my dismay, it felt like I was under a hefty mountain with my body being excruciating squeezed. A horrible grimness entered my soul and the vision went blurry. I would never have broken free of Margret's embrace, had it not inflicted such unbearable agony. I wanted to scream then the most, but couldn't!

The searing pain that I experienced a second earlier had left me devastated and shackled. I looked her back in the eye and thought, "what just happened to us? Did you feel that horrendous strain?". I wanted to cry then the most, but couldn't!

Clutching my heart, I awaited Mag's reply while she took time to loosen up. It was only then that I noticed how meek her body and grim her face was all this time.

She was probably listening to my thoughts again, for she thought back, "I have been in this pain for days on end. And little do you know how severe it gets with each passing moment.". Reproachfully she continued, "Don't think you put me in this place. I was going to die one way or the other. Don't we all have to one day?". Again she paused, then added slowly, "Before you think any further, I want you to know that I do not regret one bit of the time that I spent with you. I do not regret that I was with you when our car steered off the cliff. I shall forever and ever be yours, Dave. But I need you to let me go. I need you to bid one last farewell to me, For I cannot bear this agony anymore. Your spirit entangled with mine is holding me back. Let go of me!"

Mag's plead to lose her free from something I had no control over shook me, and our connection broke. Afraid to lose her forever because of another wrong move, I immediately looked back. To my pleasure, though pleasure is the last word I would use in that circumstance, she was still there crumbled into a ball. Her suffering had taken the best of her. No matter how bad I wanted to hold on to this moment, I couldn't stand to see her in pain. What an awful quandary to befall!

"What can I do to untangle us?", the heartbreaking thought surfaced. She raised her head and looked dully into my eyes. "Part ways with me. Like a breakup. Don't long for me. Make me a mere memory. And believe with all your heart that I was in the past.", I heard her think. In a daze, I started my thought, "I Dave, take thee Margret, my alleged girlfriend and the love of my life as a symbolic angel who appeared out of the mist to make my wrecked life a safe haven. Now, that thee have done what thee came here for, I wish for thee to return to thy heavenly abode, where thee belong. Yee shall live in my heart forever and ever to come but as a mere memory." Margret and I both stayed hanging in the vacuum for a while and then the white light traced its trail back to its origin and in end vanished. Still dizzy, I had questioned, Is this all it's gonna be?

I don't know what overcame me later, but I felt my aura fading away. I could feel the air on my skin and fabric beneath my fingertips. So this IS all it's gonna be! I thought back with certainty. With a long sigh, my eyes fluttered open. Two nurses, whom I found bent over me, looked me in the eye with disbelief and then checked my vitals. The next thing I know was that they were asking me about my personal details. Little did they know who needed their tending the most that moment. I brushed them aside and screamed, "Take me to Margret!". "Take me to the girl I came here with!" I screamed again. The nurses tried to calm me down. I still cannot fathom what they were thinking of me. I was sane and absolutely conscious. "Take me to the girl I came here with. My memory is intact, I'm fine! I need to see her. It is urgent.", I explained. My voice was lost again, while beads of tears dropped onto my lap like autumn rain, one after the other.

By the time the nurses wheeled me to Margret's room, she had already flown away. I looked at her lifeless sleeping form for as long as I could and then kissed her for one last time. Yee shall forever be my angel Mag, I had thought.

Today, 5 years from that tarnished day, I mustered the courage to visit the spot from where we were returning when the accident happened. I sit right-now at the very place where I had sat with Mag the last time. I will be going to walk down the aisle tomorrow with a girl I came to love when I was in the depths of despair. It is funny how I resurfaced with life so well after having looked at death so closely. The void and gloom haven't left me entirely, but now I find a great deal of appreciation for nature around and companionship.

As I take in the reflection of the moon on the cascading waters of the lake, I vividly see the white pattern make its way before me. Only this time it is love and warmth that fills my heart. The angle shall forever visit me in the form of the moon shining brightly against the dark of the night.