“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” Desmond Tutu
I can't remember a time when he wasn't a part of my life, beginning as a kind of older brother when I was a little girl. Protective and comforting, a rock in my chaotic, abusive childhood. Later, he was always there when no one else was, whether I had won an award for a junior high writing contest or if I was broken and hurting because a boy I had a crush on called me a fat cow in front of the whole student body during lunch.
Through high school, as the cruel taunts both inside and outside my home continued to erode what little self esteem I had, he remained close by. I knew he was there as I slept so I never feared the night. I knew he would be waiting when I awoke so no matter what the day before had been like or how much I dreaded the day ahead, I was always able to smile during the precious time between.
It was during my sophomore year at college that I sensed things changing between us. He remained my rock and my friend, but my feelings were morphing into those of woman, no longer a child. At the same time, I felt his changing as well. A yearning was growing between us. A desire for a relationship far removed from that we had shared before. Yet we could never be together. Not really. Not in this world because he wasn't of mine and I wasn't of his. A veil of time and dimension divided us like a one way mirror. He could see me but I couldn't see him. Only sense his presence when he was nearby and his absence on those rare occasions he wasn't.
It was at night while I slept that he came to me in my dreams. I never saw his face but I knew him as if I could touch his soul, smell his special scent. Many times I awoke with that scent surrounding me and sometimes I even caught whiff of it on me. He was more real to me than all those men who would look at me in scorn then walk away. Because the love we shared was a living thing, a silken ribbon we could have broken at any time, yet we chose not to. We were bound as surely as if that ribbon had been made of iron.
Then came the day when the commuter train I was riding jumped the tracks. Later it was learned the engineer had dropped dead of a stroke and his body had jammed the controls so that the train picked up speed until it missed a curve, plowed over the high embankment, then crashed into the gully below. There were people killed, others were injured, and a few, such as myself, hung on by the thinnest of threads. And it was while I lay in a deep coma that he came to me, and I saw him for the first time.
He began as a glimmer of light in my darkness. A glimmer that grew into an ever brightening swirl of magical mists and stars until a figure began to take shape. The figure of a man. Gradually the mists and stars faded until only he remained. A man unlike other men, astoundingly beautiful with warm, sienna brown, comforting eyes and a gentle smile. He glowed with a warm light. I wasn't afraid. I knew him. I knew his smile, his essence. I knew his scent and now I knew his name. It was Michael.
“Beloved,” he greeted me tenderly as he approached.
“Michael?” I whispered, “Am I dead?”
He shook his head.
“No, my love, and I won't let you pass. You must live. You must live.”
I wasn't aware of having an almost physical presence until he took my hand. I watched with a kind of awe as he raised it to his lips and pressed a warm kiss into my palm.
“I need to know you still live.”
He drew me close until our bodies were pressed tightly together. As he held me I breathed in his familiar scent that was suddenly indescribably erotic and felt the same warmth I had always felt when he was near turn to fire. He filled the lonely voids of my heart as he nuzzled the space just below my left ear. I felt our love as it wrapped itself around us, the lovely iridescent ribbon that had always bound us. I felt peace even as womanly need responded to his very maleness.
“But I don't want to leave this place. I don't ever want to be parted from you again.”
He drew back and framed my face with his big hands.
“We will never be parted,” he promised huskily, his lips hovering over mine, “We will meet each time you sleep, here in our special place. Our souls have been bound throughout time, always finding one another in both the physical world, as well as the spiritual. Always.”
At last our lips met and it was a sweet, passionate homecoming. I felt life returning to my physical body as fire consumed us.
“Michael, please!”
I wasn't certain what I was begging him for until our souls exploded, melding, driving life back into my physical body, and I awoke on the crest of an orgasm so intense I wasn't aware of my surroundings, even as a cacophony of alarms went off around me. I realized he was gone, our souls no longer joined as if we were one.
“Michael?”
Nurses and doctors rushed into the room and began taking my vitals. I regained full consciousness as they smiled and laughed in triumph, relieved as they took credit for the life they believed they had saved. But tears filled my eyes as I mourned my loss, until I heard his voice like a sigh through my mind.
“Do not fear, my love,” he soothed, “We will be together again, when your body has healed and you are healthy once again. When you can sleep without pain and nightmares. Until then, I am here, loving you as I always have.”
And I smiled as the celebration continued around me.
Another beautifully written story about a love that could not be altered because it was an imaginary friend that became more real during a close encounter with death. Perfect for Valentine's Day and wonderful for lonely readers who have their own imaginary friends that keep them going through all the hardships this life can throw on a young woman who is not particularly physically attractive.
The Matchmaker:
Angela Calminetti, mother of five, New Age practitioner and gifted psychic and telepath, is proud of her family ties and does everything she can to make sure that all of her younger siblings are as happy in love and marriage
I can't remember a time when he wasn't a part of my life, beginning as a kind of older brother when I was a little girl. Protective and comforting, a rock in my chaotic, abusive childhood. Later, he was always there when no one else was, whether I had won an award for a junior high writing contest or if I was broken and hurting because a boy I had a crush on called me a fat cow in front of the whole student body during lunch.
