The Journal

A trip through the darkness and back

Ryan groped through the darkness, feeling the way through the room slowly with his hands. His movement was aided somewhat by memory although it had been over twenty years since he was last there. Though he longed for some light source, he knew that the answers he was looking for were in the darkness, not the light.

He was searching for a voice. It was a voice from deep within the darkness beyond the boundaries of time; a voice from a different reality. Ryan had entered that reality before — in this very room. It was the only place he had ever been able to pass through the veil.

In that reality he was able to turn around and look back into the reality he was now in, except he could see his current reality without the time restrictions that kept everything linear and intact. He could look back into his current reality and see any time that occurred, past or future.

The toe of his boot hit something. Reaching out with his hands he realized it was the desk; still in the same place. He felt his way around the desk and found the chair. Slowly and carefully, Ryan sat in the chair.

In the pitch blackness there was no need to close his eyes but he closed them nonetheless. It was a swivel chair and he slowly began turning in a counter-clockwise direction. He was hoping to hear the voice again telling him when to stop turning but he did not need to. After a quarter turn he could suddenly feel that he was in the right position. His body tingled but then he quickly began losing all bodily sensations.

Ryan found himself at the cabin where he and Tanya first lived together. They lived there for four years before moving to the city where they lived for three more years before she left him. The cabin held the fondest memories in Ryan’s life. They were so very much in love. It was as though they lived in a magic world all of their own. Every bit of their lives was imbued with the strongest, most profound love imaginable.

She was sitting on the love seat writing in her journal. She was so beautiful. Although Ryan was there staring at her she could not see him.

Abruptly, Tanya closed the journal and set it, along with her pen, down on the love seat. She stood up and walked over to the glass door. Ryan could see past her out the glass door and he could see himself working in the garden outside. Tanya opened the door and went out to the garden.

Ryan walked over to the love seat and picked up the journal. Opening it he went to the last entry; the one she had just written. He read it…

“I don’t know how long I can keep this up. I don’t know how long I can put up with Ryan. But he loves me so much and I just can’t break his heart — not yet. And life isn’t so bad for now. We’re having fun. It’s okay. But how long can I keep up this act? How long before I meet someone I can truly love? I’m just living my life waiting for the opportunity to change it. I know the right man will come along someday.”

Ryan looked up at the date on the entry. It was written in the second month of their seven years together! Dropping the journal on the love seat, Ryan began spiraling into the darkness.

He was back in the chair. Emotions were gushing through him. Learning that she never really loved him, that she was just putting on an act, was beyond devastating. How could he possibly have been blind to it back then? How could he not tell that his love for her was not truly reciprocated? How could he be such a fool?

And that is when he finally heard the voice…

“This is exactly how both of you planned it. Before either of you were born into this life you asked her to break your heart and she agreed. In a much earlier life you had broken her heart, devastating her and leaving you with a thick layer of karmic guilt. It actually took a lot of love on her part to agree to break your heart in order to balance out the karma. You knew what it was like to break someone’s heart and this completed the experience by learning what it is like having your heart broken. You two worked together to provide a wholeness of experience for each other. And that took a lot of love. With the lesson learned, your choice now is to release it and not take on additional karma. Free of the pain and guilt and anger you will be able to plan together something for a future life that takes you to entirely new experiences.”

Ryan was sweating profusely. Every emotion imaginable was coursing through his body. How could he possibly let it all go? In the five years since she left him he had been unable to go a day without thinking about her. His heart was shattered to pieces.

Slowly, he began calming down. Learning what he just learned started making it abundantly clear to Ryan that letting it all go truly was the only option. Free of the emotional self-punishment, he could finally get on with his life and in the process change the way he lived his life.

Ryan bolted up from the chair and headed through the blackness towards the door. He stumbled over objects but finding a wall he followed that wall with his hands until he came to the door. He turned the doorknob and pulled the door open. The light shining in was so bright that he had to shield his eyes.

He left and closed the door behind him. It took a while for his eyes to adjust to the light but when they did it felt like he was entering a whole new world.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction.

Speaking of other-worldly connections…