The Fall

How I got to that place isn't important.

For all i remember was one thing anyway : I looked at the bottom of the helical stairs, and i was struck at how far above the ground floor i was.

After a while one gets oblivious of space and dimensions when staring at one point from above. The bottom kept going deeper and deeper..or maybe I was the one soaring higher.
Imagine with me, dear Batushka, storming your way into the still center of a hurricane, despite the ridiculous difficulty of penetrating the savage barricade protecting the solemn throne of serenity that is the core ,and looking up to the sky through that narrow tunnel upon your magnificent conquest.

Wouldn't you feel great and small at the same time ? Great above your achievement, small before what you can't conquer.

At that moment, I heard the sounds of ancient gears, as tired and rusty as they were, starting to turn again. Something big was about to begin. And I felt great and small at the same time. Because there was one step, and one step only, that would decide whether I was worthy of conquering the hurricane.
One step, was the key to my long sought-after salvation. I was right at the threshold of the unknown, were all the answers I've been seeking ,as long as I could remember, are kept hidden.

I stood there, butterflies in my tummy, pondering whether i should step forward to my death.

Isn't death such a curious concept ?
It is sad to think that most Toskliviy seek salvation in leaving their sorrows behind to enjoy eternal serenity, not knowing that maybe it's not serenity that they seek, and it's not serenity that they might find, and that death is the point of no return, an irrevocable, final step you don't get to retrace. As a muslim I could never separate my idea of death as an end and death as a beginning because I believe in the after life, and I fear the after life. Because I haven't prepared for it yet.

But sometimes i meditate; If it wasn't prohibited to take one's life, could I come up with one good reason not to take that single step; the only separation between me and the so-called "salvation"? If I haven't learnt that there is life after death, would i still think I could find happiness on the other side of the border ? The unknown is fearsome, because you don't know what to expect, but "whatever it is that is on the other side isn't going to be any worse than this" is a valid conclusion i believe all the people that took away their lives have reached at before committing the act.

Countless thoughts mingled in my head...but one thought kept surfacing more often than the rest : I'm pretty sure I was here before, I can almost remember when I've seen this place and looked at the bottom of an enormous helical staircase from above..
Except that I haven't. It was another pang of Deja vo.

But don't we all yearn for places we haven't been to ? Nay, don't we all remember idylls that we never witnessed before ? Was I caught in a Mobius loop at some point in the future and kept returning to this place, because ,perhaps, it's were I began ?

I closed my eyes..
And i took that step, metaphorically.
And then I blanked out.

Time froze.

Next thing I know, I was looking at the chandelier while laying on my back on the floor...it looked so majestic.
I closed my eyes again and felt the golden particles landing on my eyelids and bathing my entire being in light. I have already entered the core of the hurricane, sir, and what do you know, I have survived.

And when i looked towards heaven while trapped in that whirling tube I felt infinite.

What did I see when I was laying on my back, staring at the grand chandelier, showering the ground with golden hail, and the dome and the starry sky through the glass ceiling ?
In that luminous scene, in that magical setting, where time was frozen and light was immersing the hall, where no other human could penetrate this invisible barrier, what did I see ?

I saw my life, my sorry life, running in front of my eyes.
And I saw the truth crystal clear.

"Where is it?" thought Raskolnikov. 

"Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once ! 
Only to live, to live and live ! 
Life, whatever it may be !...How true it is ! Good God, how true ! Man is a vile creature !...And vile is he who calls him vile for that,"

How is it possible for me to waste a life time until that point searching, desperately, for an answer that was right there within my reach, not hidden, not camouflaged , not shifty in any way ?
It was there the entire time, only i couldn't see it.
But of course I couldn't find the answer; it was stuck to the edge of my clothes and I was carrying it all along, during the long journey of self-discovery. How satirical life is.

I don't know if you are familiar with Debussy's pieces, Batushka, but If you ever listen to his Claire De Lune, you might get a glimpse of the scene I witnessed. For it tells the story of my life, my fall, my death ,and my rebirth with a mysterious accuracy. In fact, the only reason I can remember that night although it was more than a year ago, is because this piece fully incarnates that dim experience with all its details...it's the power of an honest magnum opus, i guess, to be able to tell a story over and over again without losing its charm.

On my way home, the crunching of fallen leaves on the walkway tickled my heart instead of scratching it.
The sound of the water in the fountain was music to my ears.
The chatters of the passers-by, distant and chaotic and noisy as it was to me before , became gay and amusing.
And the full moon, so hideous and sinister, watching me all over and peering through my clothes, , came out of its hiding place a new friend, and I felt it was addressing me with an adorable timidity :

"How was it ? How do you feel after coming back ?".

Why, I felt incredible ; I felt livelier than I've ever been in my entire life.
Is this how it feels to be alive ? Wasn't I breathing just fine before, though ?
I think I wasted 21 years playing dead when I could have lived, and lived and lived till my breaths couldn't keep up.

It was a feeling I've never experienced before, probably the feeling of a person that was born and have lived for decades chained at the bottom of a deep, dark ocean, only to be released when he had not the slightest intention of breaking away...and upward he floats towards the surface, towards the sunshine, towards freedom, towards his new life,not knowing what to expect, but knowing for sure that anything at the surface is definitely going to be better than the bottom.

On that day I decided to start writing my life story...i know I still wouldn't be able to entirely pour my heart out...But i think I've released enough of the venom consuming me from inside out in the course of the past year. This venom in my soul made me start this blog, to relieve myself from the coercive darkness that stole the colors away from my life, and return to myself again.