Imaginarium

Open the doors of your imagination, Mage Meretrix Casta intoned.  There are no limits.
 
I closed my eyes, full of skepticism. Could someone who bore the name of a backwater clam have the power to illuminate the forgotten crevices of my soul?
 
Why had I bothered coming here? Magic was a myth, a band aid that quickly rotted, leaving an even deeper infection behind.
 
Open ... Open ... Open.  The Meretrix chanted rhythmically, inviting me to relinquish my doubts.
 
I saw only darkness. Grief swirled around me, tightening its grip around my belly, my chest, my throat, squeezing the life out of me.
 
I tried to speak, but no sound came.  
 
I didn't care. I was more than ready to die.
 
Open ... Open .... Open. There are no limits.
 
Open.
 
Silence and dread.
 
I wasn't ready to let go, to open anything. Transformation was too demanding.
 
The girl who could laugh and play and love was dead. What remained was a hollow shadow that walked and talked and gathered scraps to make soup and lay awake in fear of nightmares
 
I had frozen into a pillar of negation, stuck in a mudslide of regrets.
 
You are ready.  The voice of the Meretrix was an intimate caress in my ear.  You came here because you are ready.
 
I wanted to protest, to cling to my unreadiness, to deny every hope and dream I had ever had.  
 
You are ready.  
 
I took a deep breath. Essence of roses and lavender and lily of the valley soothed my airway and flooded my lungs. Suddenly, I could see.
 
I was surrounded by an unbounded ocean of scintillations, shades of improbability layered upon each other, colours I had never dreamed of seeing. They were alive, and they were singing.
 
I was not alone.
 
I started to sing freely, without premeditation. My song was a natural as breathing, as normal as blood flowing to the rhythm of my heartbeat. I dissolved into the melodies embracing me.
 
A flash of insight carried me higher and higher, into unexplored vastness of ... of what?  
 
Do not try to understand. Just be.
 
Everything relaxed. There was nothing I could control, and nothing I wanted to control. Everything was mine, because nothing was mine.
 
All striving was meaningless.
 
Then I saw them. The thousands who had been erased by a single bomb, leaving me alone, guilty and terrified.
 
We are still with you. Remember us. Tell our stories. Imagine a better world. Love is always possible.
 
There are no limits.
 
For an endless moment, I basked in Eternity. 
 
I did not want to return to my mundane world, but I had work to do.
 
The Meretrix held me in her arms, humming a lullaby, easing my transition.
 
Then the tears came. Tears that I had not been able to shed. The impenetrable ice that had held me captive was melting. I could feel again. 
 
Tears of acid, of rage, of unspeakable pain.
 
Bit by bit, the pain eased. My tears became tears of joy.