Was there once a hymn or poem or painting so achingly poignant, so piercingly beautiful, so breathtakingly, awe-inspiringly divine – its positive qualities of such immense proportions, and the sheer scale of its spectacular splendour so colossal – that even the wisest of monks or scholars, poets or saints, prophets or philosophers would bow before it; so utterly transfixed and humbled by its magnificence, that all they could strain themselves to do was look upon its monumental wonder in reverent silence and weep?
These were the thoughts cascading through his mind before he was utterly stupefied, hypnotised, paralysed by a glittering vision of a million dazzling technicolour lights careening through a vast, cavernous abyss of darkness, as spirits – from the far corners of the cosmos in his mind, his peculiar, secret inner-world – danced a solemn waltz beneath the soaring myriad of sparkling hallucinatory lights; the bleak landscape a psycho-spheric symbol for the barren nature of his monastic existence in the desert, his solace from a dystopian world so heart-wrenchingly labouring under self-delusion, violently pursuing some abstract idea of modernity, like sledge dogs hurtling across the urban fields of eternity.
His emaciated limbs felt as if they had been frozen in a cauldron of ice, as his mind slowly awoke back into consciousness and the realm of reality, the sensory shockwaves of his hallucination still coursing through his body like shuddering tremors, his glassy eyes slowly surveying the blurry surroundings in which he lay in an almost catatonic slumber, like a dormant volcano or a hibernating polar bear cub, eventually discerning a rustic wooden table in the corner of his ancient sandstone hut, upon which lay a porcelain bowl of freshly cut mint leaves and pure white rose blossom, the smouldering embers of fragrant lavender incense and a profuse array of scented candles, their incandescent billowing flames illuminating the cosy interior walls, draped in lambswool shawls, silk cloaks intricately decorated with complex geometric patterns and long hanging ribbons of tenderly flapping linen fabric, as a delicate breeze sweeps through the large crack beneath the bone dry wooden door.
His hands, lying limp by his side, began to caress the sensuous Persian rug upon which he lay; his senses sharpening, his body tingling with strange sensations rushing through his veins like peculiar jangling shivers. As his gaze wandered across the sandstone ceiling, he saw a thin line of hovering dust particles magically floating above him, illuminated by a streak of gleaming golden light streaming gloriously through the tiny window of his hut; as if there was a flock of benevolent archangels guarding him from the horrors of a twisted modernity, powerful holy light emanating from their grand spectral wings and seeping subtly into his heavenly realm of solitude, his sacred desert solace.
Short Story by Stamos Mardou