QUIETUS

Visions into the Power of having no Words

It was so peaceful. So full of silent satisfaction that the noise is blocked out by those who do not speak. And they, they who use no words, understand each other, through conversations held by the eyes. There are peaks and crevices, unseen but felt through the motions of their breathing. It was to an extent that you could swear that you can see the pounding of the heart of the person before you, beside you, as they let the atmostphere seep into them and later, its as if the whole world exhales.

It never became too quiet. Well, that’s for someone who knows the spirited freedom of just remaining. To know the value of a calm, concentrated wait… a straight, steady gaze despite a verging disturbance. It is to know the pure joy of your true soul. And noise does not distract. It may, but lasts for only a moment. A learned moment, it becomes. Then it becomes quiet again. And you begin to appreciate yourself, again.

It was so easy that you can feel the coolness of a waving breeze lace through your fingers. So serene that you can see the wind.

    The rain had this certain smell when it leaves. The ground was moist and the grass was cozy. It wasn’t warm and neither was it cold. The air was thin enough for breathing to be easy. There was no sense of pressure, no sense of need. Nothing moved in violence, it was like everything flowed with a melodious grace. It was so still that you’d actually see the blades of grass ripple when you made the slightest move. And when you look up, you’d mistake the sky for the sea. Even if it was that time when the depth of night was darkest, fear was unheard. At that time there was one who came to await twilight. She need not remain to await the rise of day. That phase of night giving itself to day was peace enough. She rested and made speech unknown. And alone, she waited.

    There wasn’t really anything left to do but to be still with everything else. She knew this. And even though she was alone, she felt a warm, snuggly feeling, like she was being hugged. She felt… embraced. She knew she was solitary but she felt an air of guidance. And the scent of serenity wrapped around her being like the tempting aroma of freshly brewed coffee. She felt like she was bonding with the heavens. Surreal. Cleansed.

    It was then when he arrived. He knew that he has at last found the one he was sent to seek. She was his purpose, and he glowed as he realized that she was sought. No longer lost, they both were. As this he knew, she was unaware. He didn’t want to disrupt. He saw her contemplating soul in her eyes, though closed they be. He remained afar and just watched her, deep in thought within his hesitations.

Space.

    The night watched. It didn’t impend its darkness. The moon was eerie, but somehow, you’d sense that it hovered amongst the stars with a smile. At times it would hide behind the thin wisps of clouds that moved like waves rolling and breaking into a shore.

    The separation of planes wavered. Conversation was waiting as it hung uncomfortably in the air. But no element was impatient. Everything was of calm. There was a purifying hush. It made anxiety go away.

    Her silence made herself known to him. And in the presence of everything unsaid, he began to know her. A secret conversation held between souls. You may call them soulmates, if you want, it doesn’t really matter. It didn’t matter at all, what you call them. The fact is, as it will soon be, that they were meant to meet. In all of those mute coincidences and the unknown circumstances to come, it was designed. Place was destiny, time was fate, and they were the plan. And the wheels were turning.

Space shifted.

    She knew he was there. Or at least, that someone was. She began to feel him, began to feel an atmosphere forming near her skin. Her hands circled around her. The sensation of being bathed by his breath held her in an embrace. A smile broke free.

He couldn’t help but release his own. And he thanked God for her.

    The heavens were kind. The infinitesimal space of time suffered for their meeting. And neither of the two dueled, but fell freely in a labyrinth of stares. Their duality grew difficult to define.

    It feels like all life’s efforts were never futile. She has always dreamed of this. An embrace so whole, so together that it seemed like the whole environment clothed her, like all the angels came down from the heavens and wrapped their wings around her. And her skin swept in tremor pleasurably. She felt odd, because she didn’t know him but still she knew him. She knew that he had come to save her from… well, whatever it was. Uncertain, but trustworthy. Ironic, it was.

    The beauty of it all becomes redundant. These kind of words repeating themselves. But pray not to get lost in them, or not to let the words get lost and be meaningless. For the air is forgiving, and it will not blow them away in fragments.

    He questioned himself. Have you ever felt anything close to this? Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe because he never did, and that was what was precisely spinning the uncertainty. Always have dreamt of it, but never realized it existed. And how he held it in his hands, thinking how he had gone through the world without knowing about it, without ever holding it. True, he thought, ever since it dawned on him that it was this much he was missing, the more he desired. How strong the desire, and the prayer to make it last.

    Do you understand all this? Have you laid down your arms to the redundancy? Or to the boring deep words? Seem they even make sense to you? He waited for the clouds to nod, for the blades of grass to shake saying nay.

    If this account leaves you numb, or if it does not push you to lay the words down, relax for a while, take a deep breath and return, then do not return. For all this does not provoke anything in you. And you have not felt the same as she has, or he has. The peace suffers. It has not governed you.

Otherwise, savor this gap. And then return, and then wait for space to shift again.

    The stars were beginning to hide. The dawn was near. She was unaware, unknowing. He prayed that the sun would not yet come, that the night’s moon hold its place. Because it was near the end. He despised it that she will know what it would be, for she will know what he is. He was filled with wanting that this darkness stretch, so they may be soulmates still.

Truth be told.

    Silence was going mad. Stalling was unrewarded. Though it came all undone, they were calm. Awaiting.

    In a moment, she was weightless. So light that the slightest movement can sen her soaring distances boundless in space. She opened her eyes and saw him, angelic. She saw his purpose and understood it. She was found, everything’s fine and everything was not alone.

    The sky was breaking. Slowly, like elevator doors parting as you anxiously wait to get on. Slow, easy. With no rush at all. What was this all for, really? What reason or cause for all this passion?

She questioned herself.

    But there was nothing left to resolve. Awake and aware, she finally was. And the universe woke with her. Taking his hand, she surrendered her freedom, abandoned all. Her movement was his. He closed her eyes. Her body became unknowing.

    Her lips had no speech. She did not know what to call that moving sensation that ruffled her hair, or what was once known to her as leaves held tight by countless arms creaking and swaying above her. She did not know that what was happening was the yielding of all. And he was sent to help her let go.

    In his merciful arms she lay weightless, her limbs limp and ungravitated. Peeking through her lashes, vision saw herself asleep, as peaceful as all when she had come after the rain had left.

    That black moment, that moment of utter release, where life’s grasp retreats to the darkness.

Stop. This is the end. This is death. No demons.

    He was complete, she has lived. Beyond anything material, amidst everything eternal. All became soul.

Now, you see, quietus was achieved. The removal from activity, the death, that something that quiets. What it all means, achieved. What it is, take your pick: love, silence, wind, death itself. Yet it remains unknown. Subjective.

Stop. This is the end. This here’s life. Quietus awaits.

April 16, 2001

3:10 PM