Elysium
I had a dream that lingers even when I am awake, as though it has carved itself into the folds of memory.
A woman appeared, clothed in white, not the harsh white of fabric kept too long in the sun, but a white that lived and moved with the air as if it had no weight of its own. Her clothes flowed like a stream catching the light, neither silk nor cotton, neither woven nor stitched, but some substance beyond my knowledge, softer than comfort, lighter than a sigh. It seemed woven out of silence itself, a fabric that dissolved the boundary between body and air. The space around her shimmered, as though her very presence bent the world into a softer shape. Her hair was dark and loose, and flowers had found a home in its strands as if they had bloomed there of their own will. Each movement of her head released a faint fragrance, as though the blossoms breathed through her. The petals clung not as ornaments but as companions, alive in their quiet belonging. She was no angel, no figure borrowed from stories of heaven or myth, but something more. Something rooted, something born of the same soil on which she walked.
The forest around her was unlike any I have seen, though it reminded me of fragments from old tales. The leaves were wide, layered in shades that shifted with the sun, and fruits heavy with scent hung from branches that bent low, almost offering themselves to her. Citrus split open in yellows and greens, their fragrance clung to the air, while the deeper orange of ripened fruit stained the earth where it had fallen. The air was thick with sweetness, yet not oppressive. Birds flitted between the trees, their wings catching sparks of light. A golden oriole perched above her and called; she answered, her song rising into the canopies as if it had been waiting there. A green bee-eater darted past, a streak of colour quick as thought, while a paradise flycatcher circled with long feathers trailing behind it like ribbons carried by the wind. Monkeys stirred in the branches, their eyes bright with mischief yet calm as if aware of her presence. Deer tiptoed through the undergrowth, pausing to listen before melting back into shadow. The sky revealed itself only in fragments between the high canopies, glimpses of pale blue flickering like a secret overhead. Even the wind carried a rhythm, rustling the trees as though it too belonged to the great chorus of the forest.
She sang to them, not in words but in tones that belonged to no language, and they answered as if in recognition. She carried no ornaments of gold or stone, yet she was adorned all the same. A vine slipped around her wrist, a garland of unknown blossoms fell across her shoulders, and the forest itself seemed to claim her as its own. Moss clung to the hem of her clothes as though the earth wished to walk with her. Butterfly-like creatures traced circles in the air around her, glowing faintly like sparks called out of the dusk.
I followed, though I had not chosen to. My body simply moved, compelled by something I neither could name nor recognise.
She touched the bark of trees as she passed, her fingers tracing their roughness with the care of one greeting an old friend. At times, she bent to lift a fallen fruit, holding it for a moment as though listening to its memory before placing it back on the ground. Fireflies rose in clouds at her steps, circling her briefly before flickering away into the green. There was no urgency in her path, only the quiet assurance of one who knows that every place she reaches is already waiting for her.
The edges of the pond were lined with reeds that swayed though no wind touched them, their tips whispering against the stillness. Dragonflies skimmed the surface in quick glints of colour, vanishing as suddenly as they appeared. The trees leaned inward, their branches heavy with fruit, as if drawn to witness the water’s quiet secret. Above the clearing, the dense canopies broke, and a circle of sky shone through, pale and trembling, yet the pond’s depth held a blue that outshone it, a blue that seemed older than creation itself.
As she sat next to the pond, I stood still, afraid to break whatever spell had drawn me here. Her head tilted slightly, and for a moment the light from the pond touched the curve of her cheek, though the rest of her face remained veiled in shadow. The smile lingered, not wide or fleeting, but steady, carrying a weight that felt older than speech. It neither invited nor dismissed, yet it held me where I stood as if the entire forest had hushed to witness it. I could not tell whether it belonged to joy or sorrow, only that it was untouched by either, existing beyond the reach of such words.
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I knew in that instant that she had known of my presence all along, and that she did not mind. I approached slowly, my steps unsteady, and for a moment it seemed that the earth released me. Each step felt less like walking and more like drifting. My body swayed with a quiet rhythm, caught between the pull of the soil and the call of the air, and I wondered if I was still moving forward or if the world itself was carrying me toward her. She gestured for me to look into the pond.
I expected to see myself, blurred in the trembling water. I thought there might be flashes of silver scales twisting just beneath the surface, or the slow drift of turtles half-hidden in weeds. I imagined the soft curl of lotus roots reaching upward, their pale stalks swaying in muted green. Even the possibility of frogs resting on stones or the faint glimmer of tiny insects skating the surface seemed certain, as if the pond must hold some sign of life, some familiar rhythm of water and earth.
But the pond held neither reflection nor creature.
Within it was a sky I did not know, a vault of darkness woven with light, lit by stars that shone in unfamiliar hues, some burning pale violet, others glowing with a deep copper fire. They were scattered in constellations beyond my memory, patterns that seemed to shift as I gazed, as though the pond held a living map of another world. Nebulous swirls of colour drifted between them, clouds of rose and indigo that pulsed faintly as if breathing. It was a galaxy, vast and unclaimed, a universe that did not belong to the one above me, and its silence was not emptiness but a presence, a waiting. The quiet pressed against me with an intimacy I could not resist, pulling at my chest as though it sought to unearth something buried, something long forgotten yet still alive within me.
I leaned closer, overcome by a desire I did not understand, and I felt myself slipping into its depths. The pull was not of drowning but of return, a call more intimate than thought. Just as I began to fall, her hand touched mine. The relief that rushed through me was greater than thirst quenched, greater than pain soothed. She had pulled me back without effort, her touch enough to remind me of the body I still inhabited.
I sat by the water, unable to leave, breathing the air heavy with fruit and leaf, listening to the low hum of insects, the calls of birds, the faint ripple of the pond. I longed to see her more clearly, to know her face beyond the glimpses I had caught. When I gathered the courage to lift my gaze, her eyes met mine.
They were oceans, not still but restless, with waves breaking against distant shores, shores I did not know. The waters in them shifted from storm-dark depths to sudden bursts of light, as though entire skies were mirrored within. At times they gleamed with the green of hidden reefs, at others they sank into the blackness of unfathomable trenches. The horizon inside them never settled, always rising and falling, as if whole worlds were being born and undone in their gaze. Looking into them, I felt myself pulled once more, not into the water this time but into the vastness of those moving depths. For a moment, I was lost, suspended between her world and mine.
Then something shifted, and I was returned, not by choice but by the quiet insistence of being human. I woke in my own bed, the room dark and ordinary, the air dry and plain. Yet the dream did not scatter as dreams usually do. It clung, as though it had been waiting to be remembered. And though I cannot explain it, I know her eyes were not meant to show me who she was. They were meant to remind me of what lies beyond what I see, that there are worlds folded within this one, carried in water, in fruit, in bird-song, in silence, and sometimes, in the gaze of a stranger who is not angel, not goddess, but something far more difficult, and far more true.
A Word from the Author
Not every story needs a clear beginning or an end. This story is not about answers but about the ache of questions we cannot name. It is about the pull of the unfamiliar that still feels like home, about meeting someone who is less a person and more a mirror of what we have forgotten in ourselves. It is a tale, but also a reminder that other worlds press against ours, just close enough to touch, if only for a moment.
Created On: 05.09.2025
Published On: 05.09.2025
