By Anshudha Garimella
There was a girl that lived in a sleeping forest. She had beautiful brown hair and delicate skin, she often wore white and she had the kind of eyes that you know have been through pain.
The kind of eyes that cried every drop of rain.
But she was very good at concealing her pain. She often did so by singing melodious refrains. It was the one friend she always had- the eternal music that is never silent. The kind of music that exists in thunder, in rivers, in crashing waves, and windy nights to send a shiver. Her music existed in the birdcalls and the crickets’ songs. She was never without them.
She aligned herself so strongly with the melody that even nature herself would respond to her melody with harmony.
One day her landscape changed everything was dark and grey the birds no longer built their nest on the trees, the rivers stood still and the crickets were nowhere to be found. There was no thunder, no cloud, no crashing wave, no dawn.
“This must be what hell is.”
“This is hell.”
“There are no pitchforks, no balls of fire, no sinners, no sign of flames, no anguish, no tears, no screams, nothing at all. Just silence. It’s all dead. How could this have happened? Is this really hell? Or is it my version of hell? Who can ever tell?”
She cried in hopes that her tears would water the dying plants, life was dying in spite of her existence. With each tear she cried, a blooming flower withered, another bird lost its wings, a new leaf turned black and fell to the ground, turning dust to ashes. Soon everything turned to ash even though there was no fire to be found. How could this have happened?
Well, she has left some things out that you need to know. Something happened in her life and her life changed overnight, her light extinguished in a blink. The girl who once ran around the woods, the optimistic vessel of the universe dressed in white and golden shining her heavenly light, singing happy songs. She was all of a sudden gone. Consumed by the disastrous venom of melancholy. She fell into the abyss of animosity, hatred, and suffering, as she suffered all lovely things and beings began to die around her. Then she turned into a version of herself that no mirror could dare recognize. Soon enough all the mirrors broke because they couldn’t find her light. They shattered in plain sight. They fell apart as she came undone. It was like she was possessed by the dark waves of melancholy and all the malicious beings that thrive in the dark, in the abyss of hell. A serpent wrapped around her creative hand and sucked out all the kind words she was meaning to write. Soon she was only left with the words unkind- of hate, death, pain, and many other words that I dare not write. All of those words contained the vibrations of the darkest cloud and saying those words would only bring down floods that will drown everything and destroy all life. But all the life was already destroyed.
She was the only one left- how long could she survive? She feared this would last an eternity- and there wasn’t even a fire from hell to keep her warm. Where did this angel go wrong?
“Which wrong turn did I take? Did I take the wrong road? Did I lose sight entirely? Or did someone put me here? How did I get here? How do I get out? There is no soul here? Should I even try to shout?”
One night all trees collapsed to the ground, the trees that had been standing proud for hundreds of years. All that pride came crashing down.
There was nothing to do until one day the silence started to consume her, the silence started choking her like a serpent was entwined around her beautiful neck, she couldn’t speak or sing, she was slowly dying, being poisoned by silence it was then she picked up anything she could find just to feel some sensation, something to touch she picked up pieces of wood and made strings from carcasses of death lying around.
She made a guitar so she could have something to hold, something to call her own. She started playing at random, notes that didn’t rhyme. But as the night turned darker she found some rhythm, some melodies, some chords she started playing them all night long. Suddenly the sky cracked open, perhaps the sky heard her sound, he rained down with water cascading down. Suddenly the winds started rustling, the rivers slowly found their waves. The rumbling of distant waves started to blend with the sound of thunder. The crickets found their voice and this went on until the sun found his way to these lonely children of the night, he threw his golden rays like one throws an object. The birds found their light and their path, then they found their notes and their wings. The trees that lay dead suddenly started to form themselves to stand mighty and proud. The winds that took the plants apart, remade them so they could stand with their delicacy.
The flowers found their colours and their petals and began to flourish once more. And it was at this moment – she looked up from her music that she played all night with passion, she looked up to see light in the world, beauty, and calmness, equilibrium and flowers at last.
With this resurrection of life she decided that she would never again revel in the darkness, she will never let the abyss grab her by the ankles, she won’t let the serpentine movements of melancholia find her again. She won’t let any darkness take away her light. For as long as she has the music those malicious forces have no chance to find her again. They won’t because she will never stop singing and if she does- even for a second her soul, her consciousness, her subconscious mind will never stop harmonizing anyway. The music will never go away.
Her light came back, her smile too, she’s dressed in golden now once again speaking to the universe.