The Return.

I slept soundly, and I dreamed I was dreaming a dream

A cloudless infinite, borderless, blue, vastitude, snowed peaks

Watched at me, a pitiable creature from the unfathomable depths of my dream.

 A wild river, a sparkling wine ran through fresh herbs,

Prairies, vast territories covered in sunlight. Life-feeding life.

In the fields, nature painted everything in its own colours.

 I was away from my people, a long time away from home,

Years may be. I was coming back to my hometown, to the place

Of my childhood. In my dream, I dreamed that someone was waiting

 For me, at home. I felt happy. I was encouraged to travel faster

The road home continued through fields of flowers, flowers of the field,

Natural gardens, little humble flowers of humble colours, honest colours.

 Drops of dew on these flowers and in the leaves of the trees

Where the morning nested little diamonds, fragile crystals

Disappeared as playful ghosts at the touch of my fingers.

I was travelling fast. I was thinking of my people, my father, my mother,

My brothers and sisters, the warmth of home

The good memories, my family, and they are expectant of my prompt arrival.

I would go back to play with them again. My little brothers and sisters

After this long absence, it is good to be back home.

A forest in my way, a green wall, a splendid wall. I breathe the fresh air with pleasure. 

A morning full of wild, good, plentiful scents. There are so many fragrances

I have never smelled before. Such a variety of beauty nature provides.

I could not find words to identify them all.

So many aromas puzzle the senses and mind, and although it was a dream,

The aromas astounded me.

The long branches of the trees bent to the breeze, and I could see abyssal ravines

And transparent hills. I saw life. I felt life. Life was intensively lively around me. 

I was alive. At every step, I met life. Life met me at every step.

Some dwellings here and there, family orchards, fruits and vegetables

A harvest feast was held by people strangers to me.

By mere instinct or common sense, perhaps it was the way of architecture.

My dream was designed to prevent me from getting close to those dwellings,

And somehow, I knew I wouldn't be welcome there. I knew I had to keep

Going, keep going. I had a mission. I had to arrive home safe and sound.

During my dream, I thought of my mother. I felt that she might

Have baked a pie for me, a wild berries pie baked to celebrate my return 

To celebrate that I am back home. A pie like those my mother always baked

When there is an occasion to celebrate any occasion. Any moment is good

When you are with your family. I kept going on my way home through the dream.

I kept dreaming through the night. I dreamt that it would take so long for me to come home.

It has been so long that perhaps the pie my mother baked for me and that she hid from my brothers' appetite is getting cold somewhere around the home.

Dreaming of the pie and mouth-watering, I thought mother had for sure bathed

My little brothers and sisters already, and she has dressed them up as she knows

What to do when there is a party at home because it's a party, it's a day of joy.

For sure, she told them the good news already in my dream,

I dreamed of my mother breaking the bread and the news to the family

To my little brothers and sisters:  

Your older brother, the one who was lost, is coming back home,

We all must welcome him with joy. I also saw it in my dream

The severe features of my father, his face severe where a smile never feels at home.

His tongue tells long stories with few words, valuable words that come out

Of his mouth, as if they were beads of a rosary.

Words he prefers to keep locked in his mouth. Pearls in a safety Deposit box.

I dreamed of his questions, questions that my father would for sure have for me.

He wants to know about things. He wants to listen. I am not afraid of his questions.

When I was a little kid, I was afraid of his questions.

Not anymore. Now I have seen the world. Now, I feel I am more experienced.

In matters of life and people. I know it's strange, but it's my dream.

Still, I felt more daring and experienced than when I was awake.

In my dream, I felt alive, so I prefer the dream status. Even in daylight,

Reveries are my food, so life tastes better in a dream.

Whatever losses I may have when I am awake, I gain them back double when I dream.

I do not want to wake up my father. I am sure I will answer all the questions he may ask.

I answered questions from strangers before. Therefore, I say yes.

I will answer my father's questions.

As in many other fantasies, I have found answers to my father's questions.

I found answers to my father's questions in every tear my eyes shed,

In every bit of experience I collected.

Yes, I know that answering strangers' queries is complicated.

However, it is also true that they were not as complex as I first thought.

I don't want to cheat on anybody, least of all on my father.

My life is a jigsaw puzzle, I guess, like everybody else life

Everybody else life is a jigsaw puzzle, too. However, some people are lucky enough

Because they are born with marked pieces, and I'm not saying it's their fault.

Thus, for them, life holds no mysteries to solve. They have no significant efforts

To make in life. Some of them, a few privileged ones, had their picture puzzle completed

Long before they were born. Not me. There were no marked pieces for me

In my jigsaw puzzle. There was no advantage; I must confess that it was only ignorance. There is no shame in hiding. I admit my ignorance.

If my eyes and ears were open when they should be, I would have nothing to repent today.

There is nothing to confess. I did not know the answers to the queries of my father

Neither to the questions, life would ask me someday.

I understand now why everything is so hard and so easy.

A paradox. The answer was often there, but I couldn't see it.

The solution was there, and I was blind and deaf.

A crowd around me whispering hints of wisdom in my ears, blowing toxic breath on my face.

Lost prophets speaking words, strange words from an unknown vocabulary

Words I've never heard before. Yesterday, I'd never listened.

Today, I might be prepared to hear them. I say I might listen to those words tonight.

My father will share my answers with his friends because he will be proud of his son

Who, he wishes, recently graduated from the university of life.

And my little brothers and sisters will understand my mother's wishes

And they will follow in my footsteps, and despite all, my mother will cry.

My mother always cries, it doesn't matter what the occasion is, she always cries

And my mother? She will shed tears that are common to every mother

Who has seen the cruelty of life? Who is concerned for her children?

Who prays for her children? It doesn't matter what god she prays to.

She cries for her children. She is afraid.

I never understood my mother's tears. She had such a strange sorrow, so ancient.

A pain adhered to her skin, tearing her face apart, and I was so young

To know, to decipher her sorrows.

.

I was just a kid to understand my mother's cry, but now I am a man, but just a man

Barely capable of understanding my mother's pain, that irreconcilable grief in her soul

Tears made pearls, pearls my mother had gathered since becoming a mother.

She has gathered them during her life sailing in the sea of abandonment

My mother's tears purify the good and the bad, the holy and the dammed.

That's my mother. In my dream, I blessed her.

Though I am not authorized to give any blessing, I did bless her

I'm a good sinner, and I add up to my sins in my dream.

I add more fire to my hell. In my dream, my mother baked a pie for me.

A wild berries pie. From the distance of my dream, I can smell the pie.

It does flavour travel through the strange scents of the dream and reach my nostrils,

Reach my mind, reach my heart.

My mother is careful with the ingredients, I know she is

She is always careful with the cooking and baking ingredients.

She puts her heart into every recipe. She has baked a wild berries pie for her son

Returning home after a long absence.

In my dream, I see myself as a fancy. I am talking to my mother

I split myself into two dreams if such a thing is possible,

And I knew it was my other I. My twin I, who spoke to her.

I see myself close to her. I am so close to my mother that I could almost touch her.

I tell her: Mother, I am already on my way. I am very close to home now.

I will see you in a while.

And then, mysterious voices come out from the forest and sang

A choir, a choir sang a melodious song that said: Woman, you will see your son again

You have prayed and cried.

Then, I also sang with the choir of incredible voices and repeated these words.

It is a prayer. I sang: Yes, I know it, Mother, I know you have suffered anguish

So many lonesome nights, so much solitude every night.

Mother, you always wanted to have all of your children at home at dinnertime,

But always one was missing. It was me, mother, me.

I know now that the hollow the absence of one of her sons cause in a mother's heart

Never fills even with the presence of her other children

I know it, mother. Now I know about it.

You won't cry because of more absences.From now on, you won't cry more absences.

Your lost son is coming back home to stay. Every second, I am a step closer

To you, mother. I will be a newborn again in your sleeping womb

And you will cuddle me again in your arms

And I will sleep again warm in them, and I will be a new boy. 

A new and fragile and beautiful, an innocent boy born of your dreams, mother,

And you will forget your sorrows, your anguish, your solitude.

In my dream, my trip continued between parallel dimensions, between lineal times.

I saw a road sneaking through valleys and hills. The road, a foreign construction

To the universe of the forest.

I knew that this road didn't take me to my destiny. This road connects to other worlds.

Strange paradises, unknown paradises, dangerous paradises, a road I should never

Follow. My road was a straight line that followed the shadows of the birds.

My trip continued. A hill now, and other, and another. I continued my trip.

Down there, at the bottom of the landscape, I could see the lake already.

A horizon of liquid steel.

The city's shield. The Ontario Lake. I could see it already: bright, expansive,

Deep, powerful patron of the landscape

Edges of foam caressing the beach, one million brides flirting with the sand.

My eyes couldn't blink, gazing before so much beauty, a landscape of eternal beauty

Guaranteed by God. Now I understand Him better. He shares everything.

Nothing is for Him alone.

A natural wonder, gardens with flowers in never-ending blooming,

Passed across my astounded pupils.

What a wonderful dream.

I made a halt on my way to admire everything that surrounded me.

And to thank the Creator of all things, I rested for some minutes.

The leaves of the trees, dark green hanging from the tall branches

Shadowed me from the intense sun. Meanwhile, I felt how life surrounded me.

The life that knows how to live floated upon the air.

Humble activity, blessed. I breathed deeply the pure air of the forest, healthy scents.

Life overflew my body. My heart sang with joy

Never have I enjoyed it so much in such a short time.

Suddenly, a sharp pain stroke me as if an arrow had been thrown at me with mortal speed

Through my chest. The pain is unbearable, enervating, intense,  extreme

And I don't know what is now happening to me.

I feel my entire body is being dragged towards the unknown, against my will.

I can't control my movements. Someone or something overtook me.

Now, I don't know where I'm going or where I am being taken.

Who or what is hurting me in this cruel way? I don't know. I can't say.

I'm in despair. My limbs are paralyzed now. I couldn't move them: my legs, my arms

I can't move them. I can hardly breathe. I feel suffocated.

A bottomless, dark pit opens before me. I don't want to fall into it.

I don't want to close my eyes. I want to see my mother. Now, at this moment,

I want to tell my mother that I love her; that I missed her in my wandering around.

I want to tell her this much and much more before I die.

A scream born from my desperation explodes in my throat

And its sound is muffled by the silence of the atmosphere of my dream

With a mute voice, I scream for my father.

Father, I said, I'm sick! My throat is closed now,

I feel sorry because I won't be able to eat the pie my mother has baked for me.

I will die, and I won't see my mother.

What a sin. Double sin. I will die, and I won't see my father.

Oh, Mother, I won't enjoy your pie. Oh, father, I won't be able to answer your questions. Father, your questions will remain unanswered.

You won't share my answers with your friends. You won’t be proud of your son.

I'm sick. I feel sick. I painfully turn my head around to face death.

A foe has captured me.

An unknown foe whom I never argued with, before.

Whom I would never hurt, ever

I could never have done anything wrong with him in any way

He is such a powerful foe. I can see him now.

He, too, looks at me from the back of his dead eyes.

There is no life in his eyes. No pity. No feelings echo in those eyes. Only darkness.

My body quivers. I'm afraid those are the first responses to the summon of death.

I want to escape, but I can't. I feel life is abandoning me.

In this supreme moment, I want to know where my life goes after death.

I'm concerned only with my life whatever is left of it

An indefinite moment passes by.

Time is no longer with me.

Calm. I feel calm. Suddenly, I feel better. Now, I don't feel pain, only dread.

The pain is gone. My blood flows again as in a rush.

No pain. I feel no pain. Oh, this is great.

At this moment, I feel I understand my foe.

I understand his needs. I understand his actions. I understand his cruelty.

His cruelty is a necessary thing for him to live.

I have no bad feelings against him.

Dread is gone. I feel better, indeed.

Now I understand how misunderstood an emotion, dread, is.

Now, I love the foe that hurts me.

I love the foe that is taking my life.

I love the foe that devours my flesh.

My foe is taking my life, and I love him. I feel grateful to him.

I love him because he doesn't make me suffer

In the last seconds of my life.

It's a great blessing to leave this world painless.

Painless birth, painless death, painless dreams

He is generous. My foe.

My blood now flows as a torrent but it doesn't reach my heart.

My heart is now empty.

My blood is feeding my foe. My blood will provide him with life. My life.

I think of my mother, I tell her: Mother, I wish that my last words can reach you

You will be proud of your son, after all. Although you won't see him anymore,

Your son thinks of you in his last moments. I won't see you, mother.

I think of my father, and I said to him: Although you won't see me, Father, you will be

Proud of your son. Oh, Father, I searched for the Light in abandoned beaches,

In the streets of unknown cities.In other valleys and other ports, I searched for the Light

With so much effort, now, in my agony, I know the Light

It's inside me. It always has been inside me.

In my sleep, in my dreaming, I know that I am dead in my dream.

I tell my parents: Your son is gone forever.

At the door of his home, he gave his life up

To favour the laws of nature, he couldn't oppose his fate. We are all condemned, after all.

A dense veil is coming fast toward me

I talk to my father: Father, I'm full of energy. Now that I'm dying, I've learned to live.

It's too late; I have learned to live.

A dense veil is coming fast toward me

I talk to my mother: Mother, I'm full of energy. Now that I'm living, I've learned to die.

Too soon, I've learned to die.

Father, listen to me: when I'm not here in this world anymore,

When I'm gone, you will have all the answers to the questions you asked me. One by one,

The questions will have an answer in your mind.

There won't be mysteries for you anymore. No mysteries.

The pain is gone now. The worst is past now.

I think of my mother. I say: Mother, I am not suffering, believe me. Please, don't cry,

Within my dream, I'm not active anymore. I'm now in a dreamlike status.

I float on a river. Calm, warm, dark waters, a soft stream

Bears me, I don't know where. I'm not cold. It's agreeable.

I feel warm and well taken care of. I feel happy again. The deep waters of the river

Carry me quickly, and I can now see where I am going.

Towards a dark tunnel.

I hear a beautiful melody now. A melody is on the air. It comes from far away.

I hardly could listen to it. I want to hear that melody, and I want to listen to it.

Please, I want to hear that melody.

It's so dark in front of me now. I want to stop my passing through this tunnel.

I want to stop the course of this river

I can't, and I've no strength. The stream bears me as if I'm a precious thing.

I can't see any light now. I'm inside the tunnel. I cannot see any walls in this tunnel

The walls of this tunnel are shadows. There are no walls, only shadows.

No light, only shadows. Soundless shadows. Darkness and silence.

Deep silence underneath the deep, dark waters

Deep silence beyond

The deep, dark shadows

I'm afraid, and I'm in terror. I’m so scared I can wake up

Mother, please help me!

Soundless screams in the horrible darkness.

Waves of terror hit the nothingness.

My open mouth, a hollow in the emptiness

My eyes are opened wide and reach oblivion.

Father, I want to see the Light.

Father, please.

Now it is your turn to answer my questions,

Father, why is it so dark here? Father, Where is the light?

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