God's Breath [4]

Timothy Fender stood over Lori watching her hands dance above her stilled figure. Her mouth was open as if screaming. Fender removed his ear-buds, assuring himself that her screams were only in the land of God’s Breath and not something overheard by anyone nearby.
Timothy lowered his too skinny frame, tucking into a crisscross-apple-sauce on the concrete floor. A bony knee only inches away from Lori’s hip. Something was awry. Different. Her journeys on the waves of God’s Breath had never been interrupted by a scream. Not even a silent scream.
Lori never remembered her trips except to describe them as waterfall serenity.

“I was standing behind a waterfall. The sound is muted. All you see is cascading water. Water so blue you know only God’s hand could have painted it. Once, I reached out and touched the blue wall of water. I knew I shouldn’t. I wasn’t afraid, there is never fear there. Have you ever seen something so beautiful you knew if you moved, closed your eyes, or touched it, the beauty would die? Yeah, but I wanted to touch it. More than anything I have ever wanted, I wanted to touch it. I needed to touch it. Part of me knew if I didn’t, if I let the wall live, it would deliver like it always does. Timothy, it changes. The wall always changes. It gives me things that no one can know. Beautiful things. God things. But it always takes them back. The blue water washes away any memory of what it has revealed. That’s why I wanted to touch it. I wanted her to know how much I loved her. I wanted to remember all the things she shared with me. If I touched her, maybe she would trust me. Maybe it would let me remember. Then I could bring it all back with me, Timothy. Then maybe, I wouldn’t need to go again.”

Timothy stretched his fingers, tracing her cheek. She was so beautiful. He could touch her and she wouldn’t die. He could touch more of her. She would be gone for at least five more hours. He always recorded the times. When she inhaled. When she came back. He could do anything he wanted. But he wouldn’t. Not yet.

“I reached out, stretching my fingers, touching the wall. It was cold. Ice cold. At first nothing happened. Then the cold moved through my fingertips and up my arm. If the cold traveled to my heart, I knew I would die. I wasn’t supposed to touch her. And then the water wall shattered. The blue wall, the beautifully silent waterfall exploded. Looking up, I saw the blue soaring into the black sky. The night sky inhaled, taking in the blue minim, filling cosmic lungs that no one knows exists. The black sky opened his eyes, ten thousand stars—twinkle, twinkle little star—the blue was back, falling from the sky. Ten thousand tear drops. I made the wall cry.”
“I turned my palms up to the sky, hoping to capture the drops. They danced away as if avoiding my touch. That made me sad I and I cried. I looked at the dirt below my feet. The drops crashed onto the hard ground but their shape didn’t change. As each drop fell, music sounded, a child’s toy piano, as if in concert with their descent. I knelt, wanting to hold them. To love them. I saw inside the blue tear drops, a face. A baby. The baby was laughing and reaching up. And suddenly the drops were floating, like the world had flipped and it was raining up. The tear drops ran together, restoring the waterfall. And then I was walking into it. Becoming part of it. It was so wonderful. God’s Breath, Timothy, is so beautiful.”

Lori believed the drug created the images, the waterfall, the stars, the tear drops, the baby. She wouldn’t understand, or accept as true, what Timothy Fender knew to be the creative authority. God’s Breath, while extremely powerful, was not a hallucinogenic. The design, by the young Mr. Fender, is to tap the unconscious. To reach in deeper and with greater purity than the conscious mind is capable. God’s Breath mined the mine for memories long ago abandoned by life. Memories would surface without definition or tags of origin. The offender of the drug (for that’s what they were from the beginning) would only experience euphoric chaos. And as testified to by Lori’s awe, almost worship-like admiration, they believed God’s Breath was a Creator. Fender knew otherwise. The drug acted more like a pissed of administrator, flinging old file folders across a room, allowing the forgotten contents to settle and mingle as fate provided. God’s Breath was a wimp compared to the powerful human mind. An unanticipated bonus, or side-effect of the poison was the prolonged near-comatose state of the abuser for long hours. Fender, genius and drug designer, did not understand, nor did he concern himself, how the protracted advantage performed. In the end, her endless journey was his addiction.