The friends were asleep on the floor… you could hear their breathing not so labored…
My eyes flew open but I could not move.
The sea air blew through the creaking structure… the scurry of some unknown life…
I thought about my life…trying to get me to a place that was not this.
I had somehow disturbed something that was previously undisturbed.
It’s substance came over to inspect me…I closed my eyes…hoping it would not see me…
I slowed my breathing… broke into a sweat… I knew it could smell fear…
It moved to the window…and seeped like mercury through the cracks…. Flew over the bay in search of souls…
I thought…The sea creatures must be terrified now…then I imagined what sort of creatures could be awake right now…
I could not move to wake my friends…blissfully unaware of the drama that was unfolding… I prayed he would find what he was looking for out in that ocean. And not be back…
Then I realized. This was probably his home…
Suddenly I focused on the daytime…the bright clothing we wore on the beach...the intense sunlight…
me floating on my surfboard…sun on my shoulders…
Anything to get my mind out of this hell that I had stumbled on…
The sorrow….The obsessions…the despair and the base endless hell this creature lived in… I accidentally landed right in the middle of this…
I thought…I will try and befriend him… but I knew that this was a creature that had no friends…at least not now…
All this creature had was momentous items of a past life…hanging on to them life a buoy floating in the vast ocean…trying not to drown in the hell he had created.
He eyed me as a way out of the darkness… inspecting me and trying to decide if he wanted to take me with him or to destroy me…
He let me know he wanted to be free…and so many years ago he was…free
He had done terrible things…and was banished to this beach house…his friends were the barnacles…
clinging to him in the hopes he would help their own daylight…
the small legged mammals that scurried in the night…because only at night…they could show their faces…
and the insects that fed on the scraps of those that lived in the daylight…
Yet all of these…held the notion that they were not living in darkness… all together…feeding off of each other…in this hell…by the sea.
My friends…still silently sleeping… I wanted to wake them…to touch the reality…and go back to the life I was from…
This dark place I was visiting…by just being awake…terrified me… It terrified me in the despair of it all…
the finality…the permanence…
I decided to look with the eyes of my soul because my eyes were too terrified to open.
I saw a blob of base creatures…at one time beautiful….merged together in a type of disgusting gruel…
Their pride created this hell…they used people…they hated those that were less fortunate…they mocked…killed….
They used love as a form of currency.., to trick the unsuspecting…and the ones who needed love…
They climbed through windows at night…all ways looking to the left and to the right…afraid of being seen…
Thinking that if they stole the ones living in the daylight…their hell would not be as bad…
Some were fooled into thinking this was life…until it was too late…
Don’t get me wrong… there was pleasure in all of this…or else why would they be here?
But this was so many years ago…at a time they were free…They squandered freedom…
And now they relive their past lives over and over…engaging others to relive it with them...
and endless swirling pit of emotion. Despair…lust…hate…jealously and greed…
There was some type of fascination it held for me…
But then suddenly..
The desperate…cloying stench of it all… I hated them all…I wanted them all to go away…
The vaporous images…sensed my rage…
And scurried to the corners with the vermin…
I saw the despair in their eyes…. And I wanted to run from this place…
at this time… the daybreak crept through the dingy windows…
I saw my surfboard leaning up against the wall… a piece of normalcy….
the creatures then went back into their darkness…
My eyes adjusted….I could smell the salt water…the seagulls awakened. They were being fed scraps form the night before by the shrimpers getting ready for their morning ventures…
I inhaled a deep breath of salt air…
I stepped over sleeping bodies…still unaware of what transpired just hours before…
I saw 2 small eyes watching me from the kitchen…a small mouse getting his last meal form his night shift… I fed him a cracker…intensely saddened for him that he lived with the night creatures of despair…
through no fault of his own…
I stepped out into the light of day…dragging my board down the steps…I let the sun warm my surf wax…preparing my board for the days adventures…
And me wondering why I was the one that was awakened while my friends blissfully slept through it all.
As it always seemed to be…