Steps

In my dream, you walked on through the battlefield.

There was smoke and there was mist - from the angry fires that raged around you, and from the cold wisps of nature as a new dawn uncovered herself. There were people all about you, some dead and some dying, and you walked on through them. You were in the long grey garbs of a monk, stained and lined with selfless giving. You had a bowl in your hand, cracked and weather-beaten, which held water from the pool down beyond the glen.

The water had been shining then, when you scooped it up. But now, as you walked through the ruin, it turned a deep muddy hue, and trickled down, leaving a trail behind you for me to follow.

In my dream, your eyes were half-closed and your lips shaped invocations.

You walked haltingly, like that eager young virginal bride who is forced to slow her gait in the cathedral. You walked like that, your arms amazingly steady, - save the lone murmur of your lips and the slight drop of muddy water, your world draped in silence.

You could sense the vultures up in the sky, too far as yet to spot with the naked eye. You could sense the lifelessness of the arm that lay sprawled before your feet and the arm over which you stepped to keep on walking. Did you have a goal in mind, were you there for a reason? My dreaming subconscious tossed and turned in vain to get an answer from you. You were silent, save for that continuous chanting for which I had no translation. I believed in your powers and I held onto my faith, wishing fervently that your chants were an invocation to renew life once more. But my dream belied my hopes. No hands twitched, no cries came, no bodies shifted. Your murmurs were of no use then, how could you justify yourself?

In my dream, you stopped as you came upon the great mound of stone before you.

The chieftain's severed head lay at your feet and a drop of your hallowed water fell onto his eyes. Was it my faith showing me things I so desperately wanted to see, or did his eyelids come down to shield him from the ravaged land. I can never tell with certainty. The images are blurred, reality was not forthcoming and eternity lasted for just that split instant. I saw you kneel there, in front of that tempestuous altar. The ravages around you faded away then, I don’t know where, and you were suddenly alone, encased in the womb of some dark limbo. There was no sound there anymore, not even your chants could be heard. I could see your lips tremble though, and I could see the endless rings form on the muddy water in your cracked bowl. Your eyes were closed as always, your hands hidden in the folds of your robe.

Tattered old mendicant. You would kneel now and pray - but for what? Your teachings were useless, your advice turned to naught. Men had died for you, and you were immune to their sacrifice. You upturned the cool serenity of that paradisiacal pool behind the glen into this, a brown liquid that made me recoil whenever I caught sight of it. What was there left to atone for? Who was there left now to receive your prayers? Who was now left there to deny you your salvation and kick you in the stomach…?

In my dream, I shook with rage.

I could see the darkness close around you now, slowly but surely, that deep dense nothingness through which not even my mind's eyes could pervade. I despaired one instant, and rejoiced the next. So this was the culmination of all your ramblings. You would be gone now, had so many others before you, because of you. Your hopes and tricks, your lies and truths, your salvation and your eternity would cease to exist now…

Why did I cry then? Faith - faith is a hard thing to relinquish. It takes eons to strengthen your beliefs, and it takes ages to abandon them, in spite of what Reason tells you. Is that why a part of me mourns your demise? Is that why, even as I concentrate on rejoicing your downfall, a part of me, unbidden and unwanted, clasped my hands in prayer and chanted your taught invocations. An un-asked part of me that cried for your mercy and cried for your forgiveness and cried that you may attain your dream…? A part of me that refused to lose that hope you had ingrained in me, even as the dark dense nothing collapsed upon itself, and enveloped you, altar and all, and consciousness left me…

In my dream, the first thing I felt was your soothing voice within my consciousness.

There were three steps, you had taught me once upon a time. Three steps to mercy or the sword that bleeds war, three steps towards love or in the end a motion in stone, three steps towards nature or a walk towards no hope, three steps inside yourself and to walk out alone.
I sighed in rapture and echoed your teachings now. In my heart of hearts, I could see that my faith held strong. I whispered almost unknowingly, Thank You Master, and I rejoiced in the gentle nothingness of undaunted white that caressed my mind.

In my dream, I could see that creation had just begun.