Daily Sketches. #24 Pain (Excerpt)

24

Write about pain – either physical or emotional. Or write about how it feels to live without pain.

The pain got sharper with every minute, so sharp that it affected her ears, she started hearing a constant noise but as if it was from far away, or as if she was wrapped in a thick blanket. The noise was distant, but at the same time filling the whole room and was making her unable to hear anything else. She knew of the only one medicine that treated that sharp pain. With her hands shaking she filled a syringe with the healing clear liquid and stuck the sharp needle into her own flesh – something she’d probably wouldn’t be able to do to anyone else, but herself, being afraid to hurt them, but with herself she knew that that small pain was nothing compared to what she experienced, and only this treatment never failed to save her from the agony. But not this time. The agony began despite the taken medicine – perhaps she missed the point when the injection would rush quickly to save her muscles from the pain, or maybe the medicine was too old and lost its power, but the pain continued being unbearable. She rolled in a tight ball on her bed and thought only one thought: please, please, have mercy… She was breathing heavily, and cold sweat was covering her face and body. She did not know how long it took – one hour? an hour and a half? – for the pain to start losing its grip on her physical being. Little by little the periods between attacks became longer, until the pain left the body. Then she just said “thank you” and, completely exhausted, fell asleep…

There is no quick medicine that helps our soul to heal when it’s suffering. There is no doctor or emergency to call in a situation when we feel helpless. Her soul’s agony that began as bewilderment, slowly grew into disbelief, then denial, until it became obvious that what she was going through was not only unseen by the one she trusted, but not even wanted to be seen. That’s when the agony began. Much as with physical pain, it creeped on her, grabbing her whole soul with an aggressive, merciless hand. It would tighten the grip to make her feel small, insignificant, invisible and miserable. It would tighten then even more, until the pain was unbearable, and loosen up the grip just a little, so she could catch a breath, hearing a deafening silence around her. Then the agony would grab her soul again, with the full strength, and again, and again… like an evil roller coaster. Love was the only medicine she knew could help, and love was the only thing missing. In the heart exhausted by fear, there was very little place for love, so little that she started losing its sight. She suffered until one day her body got sick with a flu and couldn’t shake it off as fast as it usually did. She stayed in bed for weeks, feeling week and almost numb, not able to talk, to read, to write, not able to process even one simple thought. After those few weeks of flu that hit her harder than ever, she woke up one morning feeling completely recovered. Not only recovered from the flu – but recovered from her soul’s agony too. It was just like waking up after a nightmare – as if it all was but a dream that she remembered distantly, a dream that seemed to last too long , but that was rapidly fading away with day light. 

Rise and Write 22-28

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