[This short piece serves as a bridge near the end of my latest serial story.]

The Labyrinth

Certain experiences never go away. Extraordinary things can only happen outside ordinary time. Of course, they’re past—over and done. And yet, at unexpected moments, they re-emerge as immediate as ever.

Emma knows what I mean. It happens to her, too. We race through our days, but sometimes, when we stop to look at each other, there it is—this hideous mystery from years ago. We hug each other for protection, staring at what’s still going on right in front of us.

Not everyone, she says, experiences this. Some people cope better than others. They can lock practically
every heartbreak securely in the past. Yesteryear’s terrors never come up.

Some people’s minds develop solid mental walls. Internal doors and dead-bolts protect them from the rushing galactic wind that cries with lost names and past voices. It’s not really a choice, Emma says, whether you relive the dire past or store it so that it stays where it belongs.

Maybe we keep getting pulled back because the house in Costa Rica was all floor and roof; no walls except for the bathroom and studio. Otherwise, it was open. The jungle and ocean were always in view. The howler monkeys howled, the insects stung, snakes bit, waves crashed, and the sun burned—nonstop. Life teemed in the hot, heavy air, and rotted quickly. There was no escape, past, present, or future.

Don’t get me wrong. Emma and I have adapted. We function as well as anyone. Reality consumes us in the here and now, and nowhere else. Like all sane adults, we always know exactly where we are and what we’re doing in this time frame.

But sometimes we grieve in our sleep. Sometimes we simultaneously wake up bereft, just as stunned now as we were then—frantic with disbelief.

To read the story from the beginning, go here Diary of a Heretic and a post titled "Escape Artist." (I couldn't get a permalink to work, sorry.)