The Unhinged Imagination

She sat in her chair, letting her thoughts run round like insects, borrowing and carrying. Foraging for better or more, staying small. When all she wanted to do was climb up into that universe and admire the view, know things. She resented being buried in this pit where nothing she liked would come to her. All her dreams, broken, in a shallow grave. Her body refusing to function. Her soul she had decided, was most definitely displaced but in this grave somewhere. She had asked the insects, but despite their dedication and hard work, they didn't know much. They would watch the sun rise and set, the moon bask and disappear. But they looked still flat and clinical on a bad day, on a good day they might be cheerful.

From her chair she observed her world and couldn't cry. It was her grave, she wouldn't see the other one except her daughter would make it personal, with a penguin engraved on its stone and golden letters pertaining to unconditional love. If only the wretched creature would visit more, she could stop shouting at the other chairs, and maybe the people too. 'You're imagining things', she heard so many times. You are imagining the strange and persistent knocking, the rainbows sending you messages, the clouds hinting at things you should have done. No room for imaginings, memory lane is restricted. Visitations of some kind are of interest, but you are imagining them. We don't listen to ghosts here. We revel in brain chemistry and the power in pens and certificates, certification particularly. Torment is something the nurses do as your heart rails at all you could have been, how hungry you are for success now in your world of limitations and the iridescent hatred around you now because you are food, hunted, unsure. You can find nurses that nurture you like roses but its like responding to stone because of the treatment, as they flutter around you. The scent of goodness in the breeze, but as ephemeral. In here, locked in, its hell. Their faces loom, nebulous expressions.

It's bath time. The carers say I love my baths, to my daughter. Splashing around like a child, I love the soap and water, but all I feel is my dignity wavering. Its almost disappeared too, but there's something about being naked with strangers, feeling their warm and clean caresses, as you swear at them and giggle like an old woman truly can. Your body worn, lined, marked with character. Your heart out of that chair. After half an hour of moaning about people all the while, they have hoisted me out, dried me down and dressed me for dinner. I don't know yet that soon I will be dying, my mouth stretching out, like a yawn across the ocean, like a silent scream etched in my face. That I will see my daughter but I won't speak because agony pervades into silence, as I scramble to the other edge. The cornfields are there, the healing light warms my soul as my body dies. I am stepping from one life into another. Giving up a life of lies, for one of recognition, of freedom, of observing my old bones and unravelling the complicated mess that life has threaded through me. I could be waiting for darkness, oblivion. Yet my intuition is guiding me away, urging me on, to claim the power of my eternity. Its out there, its in here, and its looking for me.

The Universe has truly chewed me up and spat me out. My daughter thinks of me as a bag lady, an old nutter, that has always unhinged her, rocked her into a nightmare. Yet she know she is loved so that nothing can touch her but love, no matter what she endures. That is one of the gifts I can give her, I'm floating towards the light bulb. I'm remembering the gifts I could give to her. My face is still, staring, but I can hear her, the lights of distress in her eyes, the turbulence in her thoughts, so much like mine. I want to talk to her in her dreams, let her know that I will do better. Life has been cruel, torn me apart with its talons but I have a fresh start waiting, I can feel it.

I'm no longer in a chair, shouting at people, I have nothing more to say. I'm imagining things now, and they feel like truth, like there was a truth in every single thing I ever said, I just couldn't find it, it was hidden from me. I lie here, dying. 'Your mum is dying' they said to her, but she was too sad to listen, her thoughts were so tied up in knots too. This glorious woman dying, and no one gave a shit apart from the beautiful, compassionate creatures that gave me warmth and comfort, though they could only see the oldness in me, not my spirit shining. The other world was calling.

My funeral was a beautiful event, small and precious, all my rights respected, my daughter wrote a poem. She said I died a winter death, but I would have a spring burial. They sang my favourite hymns and the flowers on my coffin were pretty and I was dressed in a white gown and had a satin pillow. It was a heart breaking event, but a relief to me that it was special and elegant, like the real me. I stood at the back of the church, watching, the wall of death silencing what I wanted to say. That death isn't the end, it's a transition. I tremble at the thought of a God, but everyone has been so kind on this side of life and they make excuses that he is busy, but he can be like that with everyone, they say. I met my contractors, my guides, my guardian angels, like humans but without the raging pain of problems. Insight and beauty are normal here, people are at peace and every day I feel more colour, more recognition. People don't say I'm schizophrenic here, I am known as Patricia, the beautiful lady with more courage than anyone can recognise.

I do much walking, to clear the mind, across worlds, across landscapes, I love to walk. I have picked up my soul and dusted it down. I have looked at its eerie shadows and cleansed them away. The wind blows across fields of lavender, lilies do. You can shape your freedom here, go where you would like. There is always a portal near, lest something manifest from the other world, that you don't like. You can fly, float, traverse rainbows, swim in clear pools of water. Watch a sunset over a green sky. I am meeting my daughter in my dreams and she sees me like an improving bag lady, more colourful and smart, doing better, raising my colours. Showing my independence and creative flair. Being fabulous.