Daydreaming

Winter has come so late in this year, even if the inevitable arrival has for so many times demonstrated its ruthlessness. The season of withering, its night shows no mercy. Heavy barrage of the whitish flame, flakes of anger bite on his skins, devouring his warmth, his hopes, his soul; fear drives him off his remembering, yet he retains a bittered sense: there lies no escape, when the lightless pale of doom beclouds the overshadowed moon, when the layers of biting ash spreads through the air and to the ground, from the streets to the alleys, as if an invisible hand wanders so thirsted for an encounter with an innocent soul, whose face last seen is rendered so distorted in horror… What a night of fright at the frontier of fear. But it is to be reminded of an uncommon fortune that these days would follow, in that none of the flashings of white have plagued this land so harsh.

Would a man survive from being wiped of his hopes? Not if he finds a shelter – a flaring chimney smoking into the skies, a cozy fireplace crackling into sparkles, perhaps with a windowpane that purifies those terrible sufferings into delightful scenes. Where he was once lost, he finds his way under the lighthouse; where he was once frozen, he melts and embraces warmness; where he once confronted the cruelty of winter’s demons, he watches them cleansed into a tint of Christmas-white. Aye, so carefree, he lies on a blanket-covered chaise longue, his limbs stretched as relaxed, his sight casting onto the ceiling – chiseled mosaics, finely carved. None of the troublesome perturbances he would bear, nor would the haunting phantoms sneak into his shadow. Sunk, he falls into a long, lingered sleep. Cracklings of incandescent charcoals, sparks burst into a firework festive as if viewed from within the fireplace, yet the sound would never be reminded.

You find the warmest shelter at the coldest night, sink into a perpetual sleep of days and illusions. Outside of the small house feels as the deepest hell that dwells the most terrible creatures. But even the most suffered individual is born with a light of defiance, only for a matter of a raged outcry or a seamless emotion. Revolutionists, warriors, extremists – they take the former as their nature, striving for an outcome while undergoing the most brutal sacrifice. What for the latter? Over times would many remain silent, unmoved, stiffened. Yet deep inside their emotions lies a restless mind, whereupon a tidal wave of tsunami roars beside a lofty mountain peak. Within their dreams they build the wonders, and they become the travelers who walk through the mountains and across the oceans. They live through a life, and they live a thousand more, each with uniqueness. But layers of illusions will not obstruct the shadow of the reality, which intangibly alters the shape of any mortal’s dreaming. The fireplace warms up a shelter yet does not eliminate the cold, for that even a gust of frigid wind roaring into the cozy chamber would ignite the silent peace into a frost-burning hell. Ah, the daydream feels cold, as it would freeze the layer of a borderless ocean, or let meters of snow cap at the ledge of a stretched mountain side.

From here a man would experience either an everlasting war or an interregnum of truce. The latter unveils a collection of stories – tales of the ranger and myths of the hooded wanderer, all but witnesses of the paced change over this world, as while years before one would mourn over bare rocks and a holy statue of the deity, now one be immersed in awe of a sky-reaching fortress. So that he is reminded of his past, in which a similar construction was visited, and that from the outer look to inner decorations they tell no difference. Time’s creation links between the time, just as one’s achieved aspiration recognizes one’s far, forgotten past. Silence has its power, as that one must have a reason to be silenced, either in a doubt of disbelief or a grief of loss. But as a rod must reach its balance on both sides, one must well be reminded of the other end – that be the rampaging flame of the war.

Nothing hides a war. A war is a piece of magnifying glass that seeks through the evilest inside of every man fighting for or watching it. And to a man’s knowing and unknowing, he is forever trapped in this agony that lingers, in a way that he ultimately abandons his childhood memories, his kindness, his ruth, his kinship, his aspiration toward a brighter future, for that he, at this very moment, knows that there lies no escape; that as he looks behind over the path he has taken, there lies no ground beneath his feet. He chooses no way but to conform. And he shares his feelings to ones never existed, and he speaks his inners to a mirror reflecting his so distorted look – a face of dusts, of hatred, of reluctance, of desperation. Whoever started the war has taken all its people so much… At what costs, in that the shadow has sticked over this land for so long, long enough for any victims to forget what it was like before the disaster. Far above the battlefield a thick piece of storm cloud stays from year to another. Taking a breath of the air makes one recognize the noisome smell of burnt smokes. They choke the victims in a way so slow and unnoticeable, to suffocate their throats while leaving no traces. Much across this land… The winter, the war, all have plagued it too long and too thoroughly.

Only for the moment where every crackling of sounds is halted into silence will even the most hated battleground be rested in tranquility. Ah, here arises the question. Am I so tortured by an age of turmoil, only to confess at this profane place. Is my soul sucked out from my husk, only to be trapped in a forever trial of terror? Men are but survivors of countless wars; they strive to live as worms searching for food. They live by giving up their dignity; they live by giving in to darkness and fear; they live under a constant pressure of being erased from existence, leaving but a puff of smoke that disperses in the air. I stand to watch my body decay; I linger to witness the collapsing of my sanity. It goes far from being familiar or remembered, too far from a recognized way of living. Friend, look through smog and dusts; look into a firmament of purity and azure. Look into the farthest star, as it shines with the brightest dreams, and the dream helps one communicate through time, a time of perpetual dreaming, unknowing, deceiving; a time for waking up.