Casualty of Realisation

She walks so far she thinks she will die. The path is steep and
descending. Crippled by the ache in her supporting limbs, she offers
herself to gravity, stumbling and staggering over the rocks at speed.
But she is driven on and on to the hot waters that lie deep in a
valley. There she will soak the skewered muscles until they work
again.

The Sun has already sunk behind the steep valley walls as she enters
the village of the hot waters. She goes directly to them.
There are many already there, wallowing in the pools like hippopotami.
The water is shallow so they contort their bodies strangley in order to
be entirely covered by the syrupy warmth. The water is flecked with
matter from these bodies. She doesn't mind though, and lowers herself
carefully into the quagmire. The flecks immediately settle on her arms
and legs. She doesn't see them because her eyes are closed in silent
reveree. There is much chatter all around which, after some time, she
is forced to become aware of. Two men close by are talking loudly and
hilariously, looking up at her often, wishing to draw her in. She
doesn't acquiesce as they are like ghosts. One, whose left arm and
chest is covered in gaudy tattoo, is unreal looking - like a Marine
on-leave in Saigon. She has never seen anyone like that before and he
makes her a little nervous. He is searching for a key to drawing her
into his world, and he finds it in her copy of Homer's Odessy,
dampening on the pool side. He floats over as if on a conveyer belt and
takes up the wilting copy. She doesn't mind too much.
His comments are informed which is a little surprising to her, given
the way he looks. He is ingratiated.
The next morning it rains heavily at dawn. She goes back to the pool
and he is there too, alone. As the sky thunders excessively, she peers
through the heavy spray at his firm flesh and moving lips. He is
talking about Africa and the disease he caught there. The story is
quite interesting, but not as interesting as she makes it out to be.
She realizes that he is attractive very suddenly, and both wants to be
with him, and not also.

In the days that follow, the pain in her muscles abaits but the new
pain that emerged from the very same healing waters, laps inside her
head.
They spend increasingly more time together which makes her feel
unstable. She shaves her head to gain control, but this makes him like
her even more. When they part eventually it is painful, but she feels
something important has happened.
The following months become a spiritual journey as she travels from
pilgrimage site to pilgrimage site - places he has been. He is always
there in her dreams and meditations and she begins to owe her
realizations to him. Even though she views his image as an object of
attachment from which she is to be released, it is only ever on an
intellectual level. In truth, he is her guru. Nearly one year later,
when spiritual practice has long since waned, he still appears daily in
her unfocused mind..

With her last funds she buys a passage to his home country on the
farther side of the world. She bridles with an excitement that she can
hardly bare. When she arrives in the city of his birth, she calls the
number on the thinned scrap of paper.
A woman answers the phone. She asks if he lives there. The woman
replies yes, but he is out. Can she leave a message? She leaves a
message, and then as an after thought, she asks if the woman is his
mother? No, she is his wife.
On placing the receiver of the hotel phone, her mind explodes in a
fantastic spectrum of colour and texture. All around her everything
shines with intensity as she is struck with an overwhelming sensation
of understanding. She flows into everything and everything flows into
her. She is the sky, the clouds, the bedside cabinet and screwe-down TV
simultaneously. With surprised exhaultation, she ascends to a higher
plane.

Later that day, unable to get an answer from her telephone, the man
goes up to her hotel room, carrying one small child and leading another
by the hand. Her door is open and she lies unconscious on the
bed.
She languishes in a deep coma for several weeks before finally
expiring. The brain aneurysm she suffered could have felt like
spiritual enlightenment, apparently.