Writer Unblocked

By Rachel H Grant

I raise my arms to the heavens and chant the sacred words. Suddenly, I am answered. I hear a bell ringing in the cool clear skies, as the stars seem to twinkle even brighter.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

A voice whispers the sacred text behind me. I turn, in trepidation. A translucent figure stands before me, a billowing green cloak shining with the light of a thousand stars.

“You have uttered the sacred words,” the man intones grimly. “I have come, as summoned.” He does not look too pleased about the situation.

“I am Vancelot, of the Great Protector tribe. My squadron had the misfortune to be stationed here, Planet Earth. We are your protectors, lucky us! We watch over the planet from an invisible spaceship. We live in another dimension, which is why you don’t see us. You have engaged an inter-dimensional portal by uttering the sacred words, left here by us as a key to our universe for the chosen few. If you wish, you can travel with me now to our world. But I warn you, if you do, you will never be happy on your own world again. The colours will fade to nothing, sounds will grate on your ears, compared to the raw beauty of our world.”

“I will come. It’s why I uttered the sacred words, not knowing what they would do but trusting it would be something incredible!”

I had known there would be a meaning beyond the incomprehensible characters, as I had stared at the slab of stone in the British Museum. So unassuming, just a stone with Olde English words that amounted to nonsense. But I was right.

We travelled to Vancelot’s dimension through a tunnel of white light. In seconds, we were there.

It was a world like no other. We arrived in a circular silver room, windows to other worlds all around. “This is the inter-dimensional portal,” explained Vancelot.

Then we traversed the spaceship together. Only it was not like a spaceship – it was another planet, a tiny piece of paradise, a mind-expanding glimpse of a better infinity. Waterfalls fell like ballerinas all around, effortlessly changing colour, a pastel palette of heaven. The floor beneath changed colour rhythmically, dancing to unheard music. Colours coursed up my body. I could feel them, an unusual sensation.

Everything was brighter, sharper, clearer. The air was fresh and scented like a meadow. I devoured beauty like no other. Tears welled in my eyes, but of happiness or sadness I could not tell. An artist’s eyes had been opened deep within. Now they would never close again.

We walked through a tunnel of pulsating pink light. “This is a birth tunnel,” murmured Vancelot softly. Eggs lined each side. I heard a crack as an egg opened, a tiny gold and green creature spreading its wings nervously.

“This is what your kind call a dragon. They are not mythical, they are real, and many an invading army we have stopped by throwing a dragon in front of them, roaring fire as if it really meant them harm. It didn’t, of course. Dragons are actually gentle creatures. All that was centuries ago, of course. It is too dangerous to send dragons to Earth now. They would be killed in seconds. So now, their role is to visit unhappy children as they sleep, and sing a magic dragon tune to comfort them.”

And as I fell asleep that night, after so reluctantly returning to Earth, I could almost hear it: a gold and green hum at the back of my mind.

I woke to a world that was greyer, a dullness that pervaded my spirit with the antithesis of wonder. Vancelot was right, the world as I knew it had reduced in beauty, while my heart yearned for so much more, an emptiness devouring my emotions until I could feel nothing.

I began to paint. My soul yearned for expression. Colour after colour poured relentlessly forth on my canvas. But the dullness was still there, it was all around, it was inescapable in its bleakness.

Painting became my only reason to get up in the morning. Everything else was dust in the light of a golden memory. I painted and painted, but satisfaction eluded me. Even the invitation to exhibit at a local coffee shop did not stir my spirit, drowning in the dullness all around.

One morning I stared deep in to the dragon’s eyes in my favourite picture. It stared back. Then it happened. The inter-dimensional portal opened up in front of me. I ran up the circle of light, and never looked back. Now I am free, the paintings I have left behind memories of a life forgotten.

***

The woman sipped her coffee slowly, as her eyes drank in the strange old fashioned words in the painting before her. Slowly she whispered them. They sounded good.

A draught played with her hair as the coffee shop door opened. A vision of yesterday strode slowly in, a cloaked man with a hood over his face. “You have uttered the sacred words, and I have come,” he proclaimed dismally.

Excitement stirred Stella’s spirit. “Who on Earth are you?”

“I am Vancelot. I can show you my world, but I warn you, you will never be able to escape the memory of its beauty.”

“I need beauty! I’m a poet!”

“Great, just what we need,” muttered Vancelot unenthusiastically.  “I warn you again, you will never again experience true happiness.”

“A sacrifice I am willing to take for poetry.”

“As you wish.”

Poetry would follow in her footsteps, a haunting lament to another world, words that wound their way in to your heart and never left. So words whispered as happiness fled. Memories became poetic masterpieces, sacred words that would live on forever.