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allisondraste · 3 years

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Death and Other Things That Should Have Been Fatal

Fandom: Mass Effect

Pairing: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian

Word Count: 4715

Summary: A follow up to Cockroaches and Other Things That Just Keep Living, Shepard wakes up after destroying the Reapers and copes with the fallout. Thankfully, she doesn't have to do so alone.

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“Shepard?”

The voice was little more than static in her ear, jarring her back into excruciating consciousness, head throbbing, extremities numb. Spears of pain coursed through her chest with each and every breath, and she didn’t know whether it was the several broken ribs or the sight of Anderson's lifeless body slouched next to her. She tore her gaze away from the closest thing she’d ever had to a good father figure, eyes fluttering closed as she attempted to focus only on the person speaking to her.

“Garrus?” His was the first name that rolled off her tongue, the only person in the galaxy she wanted that disembodied voice to be.

“No.” Came the stern reply. There was a long pause as any hope for comfort in her final moments came crashing down around her. Then the voice spoke again. “It’s Hackett.”

A jolt of resentment toward the Admiral coursed through her at his introduction. What more could he possibly want from her? Had she not already done enough, sacrificed enough for just a ghost of a chance to stop the reapers. Surely someone else could take it from there. Why did everything fall on her?

Because someone else would have gotten it wrong.

She shook herself out of her head and back to the present. She would have been mortified under normal circumstances, but she couldn’t bring herself to give a damn now. “I apologize sir, I’m— What do you need me to do?”

“The Crucible is docked, but is not activated,” he explained, “We think there’s something that needs to be done on your end. Is there a trigger? Some sort of terminal?”

His words clung to the air around her, and her eyes locked onto the terminal the Illusive Man had used earlier. It was just a few feet in front of her and still so far away. She tried and failed to bring herself to her feet, legs buckling beneath her and sending her plummeting to the floor. Hot tears burned in her eyes as a new array of pain shot through her body, and she groaned in agony.

“Shepard?”

“I’m here, sir,” she growled, forcing herself up onto an elbow and dragging her body to the terminal, vision beginning to blur at the corners.. Not yet , she pleaded with her consciousness as she reached up toward the terminal, hand sweeping clumsily across the haptic display. Not. Yet. “I’m at the terminal but I… I don’t— I can’t find—”

Her vision went dark, supporting arm trembling and giving out as her consciousness faded. Hackett’s voice called out to her repeatedly, further and further away until it was gone entirely.

She awoke to bright, burning light, buzzing in her ears, sensations anyone else would have associated with death. But Shepard had been dead before, and this was nothing like the last time. She’d never forget that dark, quiet empty.

“Shepard,” shouted a voice, both familiar and foreign, “Wake up.”

“What?” Blood dripped into her eyes from a wound she couldn’t feel. “Where am I?”

She scrubbed her face with the back of her hand, blinking until her vision cleared. Her body screamed in protest as she rose to her knees, louder still as she brought herself to her feet and searched for who—or what— had spoken to her.

“The Citadel,” came the reply, “It is my home.”

She snapped her head in the direction of the voice, it’s owner a glowing, translucent entity in the shape of a ghost. Her heart slammed against her aching ribs, and a name rushed to her mouth before she could stop it. “Kaidan?”

The entity examined her for a moment that felt more like an eternity, long enough for her initial relief to fade, consumed by dread as she awaited its answer.

“No,” it stated in a cold, matter-of-fact way Kaidan could never have managed, “I am the Catalyst.”

Rage ignited in her stomach and chest at the sound of him twisted and distorted by a chorus of synthetic echoes, and she growled. “I thought the Citadel was the Catalyst.”

“The Citadel is part of me,” it explained, then paused, tilting its head in examination of her again, “My appearance disturbs you.”

Shepard let out a derisive snort. “Yeah. You could say that.”

“I apologize,” it said, “I chose a form that I believed would help us communicate. You had fond memories of this one.”

“Too fond.” She looked down, unable to meet its vacant eyes. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“Is this one more suitable?” It’s voice shifted registers and when she glanced up Thane stood before her.

Hot tears burned in her eyes but she held them back and shook her head. “No.”

“Perhaps you would prefer this?” This time it’s tone was higher pitched, clipped. Mordin.

“No,” she spat through clenched teeth, “I’d prefer if you’d just pick a nightmare and tell me whether you can help me or not. ”

“Very well,” it said, Kaidan once again as it motioned for her to follow after it toward the beam of light before them. “Perhaps we can help each other.”

She limped after it, listening as it spoke, as it explained its creation, it’s function, the purpose for its very existence. It was nothing the Leviathan had not already revealed to her, but spun in a way that painted the Reapers as innocent pawns simply fulfilling their duty, wiping out entire civilizations to ensure galactic balance, to protect organic life from its own chaos.

Bullshit , she thought as flashes of destruction played behind her eyelids with each laborious blink. She remembered the sinking void in her gut as she fled Earth, watching it burn beneath Reaper hands. She thought of Palaven, the harrowed Turian faces as their military and government collapsed, the anger and disbelief that vibrated in Garrus’ voice and beneath his skin. She recalled Thessia, the most advanced civilization in the galaxy reduced to rubble before her eyes and she, helpless to even salvage one artifact, Liara’s anguished sobs as she trembled in her arms.

The Catalyst and its Reapers were responsible for every lost colony in Batarian space that Shepard had shouldered instead. Every single face on the memorial wall at the Citadel, every orphaned child and refugee, every life touched by this goddamn war, and the lives of those in every cycle that came before— it was all their fault. They had corrupted and indoctrinated some of the greatest minds of her time, broken some of the strongest wills. She wondered what had been said to convince Saren and Benezia. What had the Catalyst become to take hold of The Illusive Man?

The echoes of Sovereign’s boasts of supremacy and Harbinger’s threats of annihilation rang out in her ears as clear as the days they’d been spoken. And this entity, this artificial intelligence with the power and capability to stop it all, expected her to believe they were simply creatures bound to a purpose. The Catalyst truly believed she would help it achieve its pinnacle of evolution.

No, just because it was in a shark’s nature to eat her, did not mean she would allow it to do so. Despite the original intent behind their creations, the Reapers were monsters, and they had to be stopped. The galaxy deserved justice. She took one lumbering step toward the trigger on the right, one step closer to settling things once and for all.

“It will happen again,” the Catalyst called after her, “Machines will be rebuilt, and chaos will continue. Organics and synthetics cannot coexist separately.

“That’s…not true,” she grunted, and took another step, “The geth and the quarians have brokered peace.”

“It will not last.”

“You don’t know that,” she shouted, fists clenched at her sides, “The beauty of chaos is that you can’t know that.”

The entity fell silent, briefly considering what she said, then continued. “Perhaps not; however if you choose to destroy the Reapers, the geth will be destroyed as well. The two will not have the opportunity to disprove your hypothesis.”

A pang of guilt pierced her and she halted in her tracks.“All of them?”

“Yes. The Crucible’s beam is powerful but unfocused. It will be unable to distinguish between Reaper technology and other forms of synthetic life.”

Another pang of guilt as realization dawned on her. That meant EDI would die, too. Someone who was every bit a friend and member of her crew as anyone else, someone who had put herself on the line multiple times to protect Shepard, to make certain she could get the job done. EDI, who confessed just before the battle that she finally felt alive. Now, Shepard was forced to weigh her newfound life and the newfound intelligence of the geth race, against the destruction of the Reapers.

What was it Garrus had called it? Ruthless calculus, that brutal math that awaited anyone who spent enough time at war. Shepard had done plenty of those calculations, had made more than her fair share of difficult decisions, and she’d dealt with the consequences, good and bad.

This time, it was different, more final. And she was entirely alone. The future of the galaxy lay upon her weary back, and she was far past the point of compromise.

Shepard wanted the Reapers to pay for what they had done for millennia, wanted to watch them disintegrate in space as the cheers of her fleet rang out over the comms. She wanted to know with certainty that the war was over.

More than anything, however, and most heavy on her mind, she wanted to survive. It was a potent wave of selfishness that overwhelmed her as she thought of her friends back on the Normandy, of the relationships she’d forged and that had forged her. Her heart ached at the thought of never seeing them again, never hearing their voices. She was sick at the possibility that her last moments with those who had carried her through every storm were hurried and spent in a war torn camp on Earth.

Knowing that they were worried and waiting for her to return, remembering Garrus’ desperate plea that she come back alive, it was more than she needed to motivate her to do so. For the first time in her three decades of life, she had something to go home to. She had given so much of herself to save the galaxy, and she had more than earned the right to live in it.

There was no certainty that destroying the Reapers would ensure her survival, but it was the only choice without the certainty that she would die. She was willing to take her chances. She had to. With a trembling arm she raised her pistol, aimed at the glass case guarding the trigger mechanism, and fired.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as the glass shattered and her vision faded to white. “I’m so sorry.”

Shepard had been dead enough times to know that sound always came first, the discomforting beeping of medical equipment and garbled chatter ringing out in the darkness as her nervous system attempted to orient itself. Smell and taste came next, a package deal. This time the antiseptic and the metallic tang of blood barely masked the rank of burnt flesh.

Then the pain set in, dull but constant and everywhere, numbed only slightly by neural blockers and local anesthetic. She did not need to see her injuries to know how serious they were, how fatal they should have been. Yet there she lay, once again waking up from something that would have killed anyone else.

And she was alone. Again.

She began to panic as her eyes opened to the empty, sterile room, setting off the many monitors she was hooked up to. Her heart pounded violently, each breath she took sharp and shallow as she yanked herself free from the dozens of tubes and IVs constraining her. How long had she been out this time? What covert operation for which secret, extremist organization had found and resurrected her for their benefit? How much more could one galaxy ask of her?

There was a hiss of opening doors and an unfamiliar asari entered the room urgently, arms extended out in front of her. In one breath she reassured Shepard that everything was going to be all right and in the next called for a medical restraint, a sedative. She stepped slowly toward Shepard as one would approach a frightened, feral animal, and two more uniformed aliens entered the room. Shepard stood tall, despite the ache in her bones and glared at the three of them.

“Ma’am, I know you must be very disoriented right now, and I am happy to answer any and all of your questions,” the asari said, holding her hands up, “But you are in no shape to be out of bed. I need you to calm down before you hurt yourself further.”

Shepard glanced from the asari to the two salarians on either side of her. They all wore generic attire that was standard for medical professionals across the galaxy, but their uniforms had no indication of their names or who they worked for. She crossed her arms and winced through the pain as she argued. “How about you start by telling me where I am, then I’ll decide if I want to calm down or not.”

Just as she finished speaking the doors opened again, this time to faces she knew, and the subsequent wave of relief that washed over her nearly knocked her back into the bed on it’s own. On the right stood Dr. Michel, who she remembered helping out on several occasions during the Reaper War. A bit sweet on Garrus, if she remembered correctly. On the left, wearing a smirk and a raised eyebrow, was none other than Miranda Lawson.

“Sit down, Shepard,” Miranda asserted in her trademark tone. She flashed the hint of a smile and continued, “The residents aren’t being paid enough for you to harass them.”

Shepard’s eyes flicked over to the three aliens who’d been tending to her just moments before. They were now speaking nervously with the doctor, who muttered something about tests they needed to run followed by some other medical jargon that Shepard couldn’t decipher. She did as her friend directed and eased herself back down onto her bed, offering a sheepish grin as she did so. “I feel like such an ass.”

“Don’t,” Dr. Michel chimed in as she approached the bed, and began to scan Shepard with her omni-tool, “You have been in a coma for almost a month. It was expected that you would be agitated when you awoke, especially considering everything you’ve been through.”

Shepard’s chest swelled with something like gratitude. A month . She’d only been out for a month, and she had woken up in what she could now tell was Huerta Memorial under the care of a physician she trusted and one of her closest friends. This was nothing like the last time she died. She looked up at Miranda and asked,“Had to put me back together again, I see?”

“I only helped this time,” Miranda explained as she worked to reconnect some of the IVs Shepard had ripped out, “Dr. Michel contacted me a few weeks ago for a consultation about your cybernetic augmentation. I was already on the Citadel, so I came in person to oversee the repairs.”

“Is everything working?”

“Mostly,” Miranda shrugged, “Not quite up to specifications, but your injuries are still healing. With time, you should be fine.”

“And hopefully far away from any more life-threatening battles, yes,” remarked Michel, moving to a terminal near the wall and transferring data collected from her omni-tool scans.

Shepard let out a huff, and let herself recline onto the bed, walls crumbling away at the comforting conversation. She took a breath and let her eyes flutter closed for just a minute, and said, “If I can. If the galaxy will let me.”

“The galaxy’s going to have to,” announced an unmistakable voice from the door, and Shepard bolted upright to face it. To face him .

She hadn’t even heard the door open, and yet there stood her turian, with all that easy confidence he’d always carried himself with and a bouquet of indistinguishable gift shop flowers in each hand. Her pulse jumped, a fact the vitals monitor in the corner was quick to inform her and everyone in the room about. She would never live that one down.

“Garrus!”

“Is that cardiac arrest—“ he motioned toward the screen with one of the bouquets— “Or, uh… are you just happy to see me?”

Shepard just rolled her eyes, unable to stop the grin that twitched at the corners of her mouth as he sauntered up to the bedside.

“I wasn’t sure which you’d like better,” Garrus explained, glancing with uncertainty between the flowers in each hand, “So I got both. There’s also some chocolate and a few books of hanar poetry back at the gift shop if you just absolutely hate the flowers. I can run back down and—“

She laughed and shook her head at him. “They’re perfect.”

“Are you sure?” He examined each bouquet again. “You might need the poetry to bore you back into a coma.”

“I thought that anthology was quite beautiful and romantic, myself,” Michel remarked, amused. She approached Shepard again and administered something that relieved the throbbing pain in her head she’d barely noticed in all the commotion. “There, that should keep you comfortable for a time. I will come and check on you in a few hours ”

“I’ll be going as well,” Miranda said, eyeing Shepard and Garrus knowingly. “Call me if you need anything.”

She turned to follow the doctor out of the room but stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Oh, and Shepard? I’m glad we got to see each other again “

Shepard nodded. “So am I.”

With that Miranda left the room, the door sliding shut behind her. Shepard turned her gaze up to Garrus who was already looking at her, pale eyes scanning every inch of her face intently. His mandibles twitched and flared in the very specific way they always did when he was agitated or worried. He shook his head, discarded both bundles of flowers onto the nearby bedside table, and sat down on the edge of the bed next to her, staring off at the wall in silence.

“Shepard I— I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up,” he said finally, turning to look at her and placing a hand on her leg, “I’d just gone to get some air…I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“It’s okay,” she reassured him, reaching for his hand and wondering just how many sleepless hours he’d sat by her bed waiting for her to come to. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers, lingering there for several long moments. She brought a hand up to trace the rough ridges of scarring along the right side of his face. His eyes fluttered closed at the touch, and he let out a heavy sigh, as if she’d lifted some invisible weight off of him with just the tips of her fingers.

“You know,” she spoke up, breaking the powerful silence between them, “I think I finally have some scars that’ll give you a run for your credits.”

Garrus laughed, but it was quiet—almost sad— and he pulled back to examine her.

“How bad is it,” she asked, “There aren’t any mirrors in here.”

He laughed again, this time with more enthusiasm. “Hell, Shepard, I don’t know. You always were ugly, so it’s hard for me to say.”

“Okay,” she admitted with a smirk, “I had that one coming.”

The room went quiet again, with the exception of the buzzing and whirring of the equipment around them. It wasn’t uncomfortable, though— nothing had ever been uncomfortable with Garrus— but it was heavy with unspoken pain and unasked questions for which Shepard wasn’t sure she wanted answers.

“How’s everyone else,” she ventured.

“Recovering,” he answered with a sigh, “Joker tried to outrun the blast, but even the Normandy wasn’t quick enough. Crash landed on some human colony world. Everyone made it except—“

“EDI,” she said, name bitter on her tongue. She’d hoped the catalyst had been lying about the Crucible’s effect on synthetic life.

“Yes… how did you—“

This time, she was not able to dam up the wave of emotions that crashed into her. Tears rushed to her eyes, shame and remorse tightening her chest like a vice. She was a soldier, and she knew that sacrifices won wars, but that did not make it any easier.

“It’s a long story,” she said with a sniff, looking away from him and attempting to wipe away the tears before he could see them, as if he hadn’t already.

“Well—” Garrus reached out and grabbed her chin, gently, giving it a tug until she brought her gaze back to him. “It’s a good thing I cleared my afternoon schedule, then. Tell me everything.”

And so she did. With a shaky voice, she recounted everything that happened from the time she called the evac for Garrus and Liara to the moment she was struck by the Crucible’s blast. She told him about The Illusive Man, Anderson, the Catalyst who wore Kaidan’s face, and the impossible choice she was given. He listened to every word, offered her his hand, and didn’t complain as her grip grew tighter and tighter with each devastating revelation.

When she was finished, eyes swollen and head throbbing, she looked at him and said, “I fucked up, Garrus. I had a chance to save EDI and the geth, but I just… couldn’t do it. I was so angry and… scared , and—“

“Shepard,” Garrus interrupted her, laughing and shaking his head.

“What?”

“You’re about the only person I know who could save the whole damn galaxy and feel guilty because you didn’t save it better.”

“My life isn’t worth more than EDI’s was, and it definitely isn’t more important than the entire geth race,” Shepard argued.

Garrus blinked back at her a few times, then responded. “It is to me.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but the words didn’t come, so she clamped it shut and frowned. Her entire argument fell apart in the wake of his blunt confession. How the hell was she supposed to respond to something like that?

“It was selfish,” she finally managed past the lump in her throat, “It was genocide.”

“Maybe,” he answered, firmly, “Maybe not. We have no way of knowing that anything the Catalyst told you was true.”

“Why would it lie?”

“I don’t know, maybe to save it’s own ass?” His words were pointed but not directed to her. “It was clearly trying to get in your head, Shepard, using Alenko like that.”

“But—”

“No,” he snapped, “You made the right call, and no one is going to fault you for it except you.”

“ Garrus …” she began, but trailed off when she noticed him looking down at their intertwined fingers, shaking his head and seeming to struggle with his emotions.

When he spoke up, his voice was hoarse. “You’ll forgive me if I say I don’t think you owe anyone—not EDI, not the geth, not the Alliance, not the rest of the galaxy— any more than you’ve already given.”

He paused for a beat, then added in a lighter tone, “Except me. You owe me a long retirement on your fancy Alliance pension.”

Shepard snorted out a laugh, despite everything, and reached up to take his face in her hands. She pulled him closer to her, just so that she could press a kiss against the side of his mouth.

“I’ll think about it,” she whispered.

Just as they pulled apart, the door opened and they both turned to see who had entered. Dr. Michel stood at the threshold smiling at them apologetically. “I am sorry for the interruption, but—”

“Someone tell Garrus to quit hogging the Commander,” complained an all too familiar voice as he pushed past the doctor and into the room. “The rest of us have been waiting just as long as he has.”

“Joker,” Shepard exclaimed, nearly jumping up out of the bed to greet him.

“The one and only,” he said proudly then held up a small plastic crate to show her, “And I brought you something. Basically had to wrestle the Alliance brass for it when they declared you dead.”

“What—,” she asked as she squinted at the box, noticing movement in the corner, “Is that my hamster?”

He sat the container down carefully on the table next to the flowers Garrus had tossed aside, “It’s not two bouquets of useless flowers or anything, but, well…you know.”

“We can’t all be as romantic as you,” Garrus said sarcastically as he stood up and stepped away from the bed, allowing the other man space to approach Shepard.

“Thank you, Joker,” Shepard said with a nod as she sat up in the bed, “And about EDI, I—“

He cut her off with the shake of his head, clearly not ready to discuss it. “Not your fault, Commander.”

Shepard just nodded, sorry, but not wanting to force the issue. Joker puffed his chest out and saluted her, just as more commotion rang out from the door. She darted her eyes across the room again to see the flood of other people pouring in from the hallway.

Ash was the first to rush to the bedside, throwing appropriate Alliance protocol out the window as she threw her arms unceremoniously around Shepard. The embrace was firm, but not so forceful that it caused her aching body any extra pain, and when Ash pulled away, Shepard could see the tears glistening in her eyes. She stiffened up and saluted just as Joker had done, and said “Ma’am.”

Much to Shepard’s surprise, Ash then approached Garrus and embraced him briefly as well, pulling away and then giving him a pat on the arm.

The others followed suit after that, offering words of gratitude that she had saved the galaxy, and relief that she’d managed to pull through. Tali and Liara had followed Ash’s example and hugged her. The others didn’t but greeted her with enthusiasm all the same. Vega mentioned how “epic” it was when the fleet realized she’d made it to the Citadel and got the arms opened while Traynor and Cortez nodded along. Javik, in his typical fashion stood quietly in the corner but nodded at her with a look of admiration she had yet to see from the Prothean. Dr. Chakwas and the crew from engineering squeezed themselves in the now cramped space as well. Chakwas approached the bed and gave Shepard’s hand a firm squeeze.

Humbling was not a strong enough word to describe the experience of seeing everyone who’d been on the Normandy with her in that final journey to Earth gathered around celebrating her survival. They had all meant so much to her, and only now did she realize that she’d meant the same to them.

She’d grown accustomed to being a sole survivor, watching her own back and carrying on alone with each of her mistakes strapped to her shoulders. She was used to blaming herself with the voices of those she lost, of nightmares and flashbacks and consoling herself back to sleep in the middle of the night. She had trained herself to be numb because she could not bear feeling guilty.

Now, she didn’t have to. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she had people who cared about her, people who she trusted, and they had survived. For the first time, she wasn’t alone with her grief and she didn’t have to be numb. She had friends who would hold her together while she sorted herself out, just as she had done for each and every one of them.

“You okay,” Garrus asked as he approached the bedside again, letting a hand tousle her hair gently before falling to her shoulder.

“Yeah.” She nodded and glanced around the room slowly, taking it all in. “I really actually am.”

#mass effect #mass effect legendary edition #garrus vakarian #femshep #shakarian #angst #hurt/comfort #fanfic #my writing

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dantesintegrity · 4 years

Text

You know what I absolutely yearn for these days

Just the ability to go to a Diner. The kind that is open all the time, day and night, so you can simply just go in and just sit down. Perhaps you chose a table, or on one of those stools near the counter, but you always end up picking a booth next to the wide windows. You don’t order anything, but you do have a Coffee Mug next to you. You always loved the smell that Coffee makes. You take a sip of Coffee. You sit there with your computer open, and you just write. Whether it be an essay you need to finish, or your dream novel you are finally writing, you just write.

A waitress walks up to you and asks ‘do you need anything ...?’ while pointing to the menu that has been sitting by to you for the past hour. However you instead point to the Coffee Mug near your hand and say, ‘More Coffee please,’ She walks over to the Coffee brewer and takes the jug from it and pours your Mug before walking away. As she walks away, you take in the scene once more. You turn to your right, there are dozens of people in the Diner. All of them are talking to the person they sit next to, on their phone, or to no-one in particular. You don’t pay attention to any one of them, but the echoes of their voices provide a good ambience. You turn to your left, there you see the parking lot with cars, bikes, but you also still see the road people got here from. It's noon, so the Sun is high up in the air and the Natural light it provides gives you some warmth. You look back forward, you see your computer with a word document open with a few sentences written. You take a sip of Coffee, and start writing. When you start typing, the world starts to blur away as you enter the Flow.

Suddenly, You are interrupted. It’s the Waitress again, she asks, ‘you need anything ...?’ While pointing to the menu once again. You shake your head as you point to your empty Mug, ‘I just need more Coffee,’ She then takes the jug she was already holding and refills your Mug with Coffee before moving along. You take a sip of Coffee. Then you take a second to actually look at the menu you were given. It has a standard retro style to it, completely consisting of bold lines of Red on White. The things you can order includes many different types of Burgers, Hotdogs, Steaks, Sandwiches, Patty-melts, Fried Chicken, Fried onion Rings, Fries, Soft drinks, Hard drinks, Milkshakes, and whatever it is that’s acting as the Special for that particular day. The pictures look delicious and the descriptions sound quite appetizing, but you’re not hungry. You take a sip of Coffee. You look outside to see that the Sun that had risen high up above is now in the middle of Setting, and the blue sky is now warm orange. There are fewer cars and bikes in the parking lot, to turn to look back inside and notice that there were fewer people within. Luckily it is still enough to create an ambience to zone out to. You look back to your computer, you see the number of words, sentences, and Pages of the Document have increased dramatically, and while you do feel pride for your progress, you still wish to continue writing for just a little bit longer. You take a sip of Coffee.

You look on your word document and put your hands back on the keyboard. You read the sentences once more, thinking of a way to continue on with what you just wrote down. You read the last few paragraphs, nodding to the subtle little metaphors, and similes, and analogies, and allegories that you put in, as you try to think of any more you could add. You go on to read back a couple pages more and try to determine flow and the speed of which everything you wrote down moves in, and you try to think of how you can progress. You try to read from the start, but you keep scrolling up, and up, and up with barely any movement in the scroll bar. Surely you haven’t written that much? Even if you did, it would still be best if you continue writing from here on. Right? You would do that, but the words, the words are just not coming to you. It’s not as if you aren’t trying, you are desperately trying to grasp the straws that come up in your mind, yet they are just too out of reach, or too close to you that they just seem generic. You take a sip of Coffee.

After you take a sip, you realize that you are out of Coffee. You call out for the Waitress, trying to find her. You seem to be completely alone in the Diner, yet the Ambience of a hundred half heard conversations still echoes within. You look outside the window next to you, and see that it is night. It’s dark, so dark that the street lamps barely shine enough to reach the ground. You can see the night sky, the hundreds upon thousands of Stars that litter the dark purple that is space. Other than the Stars, the moons, and the barely visible street lights, it is pitch black outside. You can not see anything out there. You can not see the people out there, nor their brightly colored clothes. You can’t see them wander around smiling as if waiting for you, nor can you see their gestures of beckoning you to come along. It’s too dark for you to hear them whisper about you. You take a sip of Coffee.

You notice the menu once again. Last time it was Lunch and Dinners, but now you see the menu consist of Desserts, mainly pies. There’s Apple pie, Cherry pie, Strawberry pie, Blueberry pie, Pecan pie, Lemon meringue pie, Chicken pot pie, Pork pot pie, Beef pot pie, Lamb pot pie, Wild game pot pie, Civilized game pot pie, Game pot pie, Sport pot pie, Fight pot pie, Lie pot pie, Truth pot pie, The actual truth pot pie, etc. You aren’t hungry for any of those. You take a sip of Coffee.

You look for more things to distract your mind. The diner has barely any lights on, yet it still seems brightly lit enough for you to see clearly. You look at the tables, and the small circular shape it consists of. Condiments, Jams, Coffees, and all of the other standard dining table materials are laid on it; probably more than their needs to be. You don’t know if there is even enough space to put a plate on it. Now that you are looking at them, those chairs, were they always that tilted? The counter with stools looks like a nice place, but after shifting your view you realize that the Stools are just optical illusions, painted on the counter and floor. There is also a display case with the various different kinds of pies you just read about, their colors look mesmerizing, but the way they move bothers you. Not only that but you just noticed that the front door that you were certain existed before is no longer there. Well, that does not particularly matter to you, you don’t plan on leaving anytime soon. You take a sip of Coffee.

‘Need anything ...?’ the Waitress from before says to you. You turn to her. You take a sip of Coffee. ‘I need a refill on Coffee’ You tell her, pointing at your Coffee Mug. You hear her head tilt slightly, and Coffee comes pouring down. You thank her for the Coffee as she shifts away from your sight. You take a sip of Coffee.

As you are Sipping your Coffee, you realize that both your hands are typing something on your computer. You stop your hands with your hands and scroll back up to read what you just wrote. You take a sip of Coffee.

‘You need to move on,

Please,

You have to go,

Just go,

It doesn’t even need to be forward,

You can go backwards,

You can go leftwards, or rightward.

You can go north, or south, or east, or west, or north east, or north west, or south east, or south west, or ascend, or descend, or climb, or drop, or straight, or pass, or across, or along, or between, or behind, or over, or under, or around.

Just go somewhere.’

The writing continues for five hundred more pages, you don’t like how condescending the words are. You take a sip of Coffee.

When you look back to the Diner, it appears that several more hours have passed. The sun is shining through the window but the sky is a Mossy-Brick color now. It doesn’t bother you though, you never really cared about what color the sky is. You take a sip of Coffee. Besides, you can’t even see the window anymore. There is only a Mirror there, you don’t like looking at it though, the way the reflection looks back at you annoys you. You take a sip of Coffee. The ambience in the Diner has fully returned, there is still no-one else in the Diner, but no-one got bored and they decided to have a conversation with each other. You take a sip of Coffee.

The Waitress returns. You take a sip of Coffee. ‘Anything ...?’ she says to you. You try to look up to see her face, but no matter how far you look up, and twist your neck, and bend your back, you just can’t seem to reach her face. Regardless, you look at the general direction you assume her face would be in and say, ‘I would like some more Coffee please,’ while pointing at the Coffee Mug. She blinks, and doesn’t say anything. There was no malice in what she didn’t say, but you didn’t particularly like how she phrased the thing she didn’t say. She demanifests after she refills your Coffee mug. You take a sip of Coffee.

There’s a person sitting on the other side of the table with you now. You don’t remember seeing him before, but his face seems friendly so you must have allowed him to sit there. You ask him, ‘What do you think?’ He responds with a simple, ‘Yes.’ His eyes are the color of petrichor, and his breath smells like Sapphire. You take a sip of Coffee. Suddenly, there is a person playing piano behind you. Without even looking at you, the pianist somehow plays a song that aligns with every single one of your actions; She smiles as she shifts the melody to a higher octave as you grab and lift up your Coffee Mug. You take a sip of Coffee. As you take your sip, The Pianist, The Person Across You, and every single one of the No-Ones in the Diner whistles along with the melody in perfect pitch. You take a sip of Coffee. Everyone and No-One suddenly comes to the same conclusion, and walks over to a lamp to paint it Cyan. You take a sip of Coffee.

The waitress is now with you once again, ‘...?’ She asks. ‘More Coffee please’ You ask her for more Coffee. She doesn’t say anything to you.

She doesn’t ask you where you are going.

‘No where, I don’t need to go anywhere.’ you ask her for more Coffee.

She doesn’t ask you where you think this place is.

‘It’s a Diner.’ you ask her for more Coffee.

She doesn’t tell you that you are on the Crossroads.

‘This isn’t a crossroad, this is a diner’ you ask her for more coffee.

She doesn’t tell you that everywhere is a crossroad, this place is just more so the Crossroads.

She doesn’t tell you that you have been sitting on a crossroad for a long while, and while you can make a choice to move one direction, another direction.

She doesn’t tell you that you never even made a choice, and that even moving back is a Choice.

‘Are you forcing me to choose?’ you ask her for more coffee.

She doesn’t tell you.

You look back to the window, but you still can’t see the outside due to the Mirror, the mirror only shows you what you know you will do; and you can’t see the Sun telling everyone prophecies and the others Dancing, beckoning for you to join the dance. You look back in the Diner, and you see Everyone and No-One eating the pies that were displayed earlier, all of the colors look delicious, but you scoff at their decadence. You look forward to seeing your Computer writing on its own, all while plucking out its own keys. You look back, the Piano is now playing poker with the Cyan painted lamp. You look at the Waitress.

‘Am I dead?’ you ask her for more coffee.

‘Have you decided that you are dead?’ She asks you.

You don’t tell her your Answer.

You take a sip of Coffee.

#just something to ponder #writing #surreal #unreality #surreal writing #tw unreality

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art-now-india · 3 years

Photo

Remnant 2, Amrish Malvankar

Life moves on and all that remains is a vestige of the era gone by. The fragment of a memory, happiness of a moment and traces of a past, captured in all its glory in this collection. Each painting seen from my perspective of a moment in life as he breathes life into the echo of a memory from up above ! Looking down at memories as they inter twine with the sentinels of modern civilization. The interplay of colors and texture touch upon each aspect of the memory and relate to life in parts. The composition gives you the illusion of the whole and transports you into a different time and reality.

https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Remnant-2/555095/2841318/view

#abstract #abstractexpressionism #amrishmalvankar

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didanawisgi · 5 years

Link

Ancient Man Used “Super-Acoustics” to Alter Consciousness

A prehistoric necropolis yields clues to the ancient use of sound and its effect on human brain activity. Researchers detected the presence of a strong double resonance frequency at 70Hz and 114Hz inside a 5,000-years-old mortuary temple on the Mediterranean island of Malta. The Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum is an underground complex created in the Neolithic (New Stone Age) period as a depository for bones and a shrine for ritual use. A chamber known as "The Oracle Room" has a fabled reputation for exceptional sound behavior. During testing, a deep male voice tuned to these frequencies stimulated a resonance phenomenon throughout the hypogeum, creating bone-chilling effects. It was reported that sounds echoed for up to 8 seconds. Archaeologist Fernando Coimbra said that he felt the sound crossing his body at high speed, leaving a sensation of relaxation. When it was repeated, the sensation returned and he also had the illusion that the sound was reflected from his body to the ancient red ochre paintings on the walls. One can only imagine the experience in antiquity: standing in what must have been somewhat odorous dark and listening to ritual chant while low light flickered over the bones of one's departed loved ones. Sound in a Basso/Baritone range of 70 – 130 hz vibrates in a certain way as a natural phenomenon of the environment in the Hypogeum, as it does in Newgrange passage tomb, megalithic cairns and any stone cavity of the right dimensions. At these resonance frequencies, even small periodic driving forces can produce large amplitude oscillations, because the system stores vibrational energy. Echoes bounce off the hard surfaces and compound before they fade. Laboratory testing indicates that exposure to these particular resonant frequencies can have a physical effect on human brain activity. In the publication from the conference on Archaeoacoustics which sparked the study, Dr. Paolo Debertolis reports on tests conducted at the Clinical Neurophysiology Unit at the University of Trieste in Italy: "…each volunteer has their own individual frequency of activation, …always between 90 and 120 hz. Those volunteers with a frontal lobe prevalence during the testing received ideas and thoughts similar to what happens during meditation, whilst those with occipital lobe prevalence visualized images." He goes on to state that under the right circumstances, "Ancient populations were able to obtain different states of consciousness without the use of drugs or other chemical substances." Writing jointly, Anthropologist, Dr. Ezra Zubrow, Archaeologist and Psychologist, Dr. Torill Lindstrom state: "We regard it as almost inevitable that people in the Neolithic past in Malta discovered the acoustic effects of the Hypogeum, and experienced them as extraordinary, strange, perhaps even as weird and "otherworldly". What is astounding is that five thousand years ago the builders exploited the phenomenon, intentionally using architectural techniques to boost these "super-acoustics". Glenn Kreisberg, a radio frequency spectrum engineer who was with the research group, observed that in the Hypogeum, "The Oracle Chamber ceiling, especially near its entrance from the outer area, and the elongated inner chamber itself, appears to be intentionally carved into the form of a wave guide." Project organizer Linda Eneix points to other features: "The carving of the two niches which concentrate the effect of sound, the curved shape of the Oracle Chamber with its shallow "shelf" cut high across the back, the corbelled ceilings and concave walls in the finer rooms are all precursors of todays' acoustically engineered performance environments." She says, "If we can accept that these developments were not by accident, then it's clear that Ħal Saflieni's builders knew how to manipulate a desired human psychological and physiological experience, whether they could explain it or not." Why? It was demonstrated at the conference that special sound is associated with the sacred: from prehistoric caves in France and Spain to musical stone temples in India; from protected Aztec codexes in Mexico to Eleusinian Mysteries and sanctuaries in Greece to sacred Elamite valleys in Iran. It was human nature to isolate these hyper-acoustic places from mundane daily life and to place high importance to them because abnormal sound behavior implied a divine presence. In the same conference publication Emeritus Professor Iegor Reznikoff suggests that Ħal Saflieni is a link between Palaeolithic painted caves and Romanesque chapels … "That people sang laments or prayers for the dead in the Hypogeum is certain, for a) it is a universal practice in all oral traditions we know, b) at the same period, around 3,000 BC, we have the Sumerian or Egyptian inscriptions mentioning singing to the Invisible, particularly in relationship with death and Second Life, and finally c) the resonance is so strong in the Hypogeum already when simply speaking, that one is forced to use it and singing becomes natural." Drs. Lindstrom and Zubrow hint at a more hierarchal purpose for the manipulation of sound. "The Neolithic itself was characterized by cultures focused on new invention…enormous collective collaborations over extended periods of time. For these large-scale projects of agriculture and building, social cohesion and compliance was absolutely necessary." The same people who created Ħal Saflieni also engineered a complete solar calendar with solstice and equinox sunrise alignments that still function today in one of their above-ground megalithic structures. There is no question that a sophisticated school of architectural, astronomic and audiologic knowledge was already in place a thousand years before the Egyptians started building pyramids. Eneix believes that Malta's Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum is a remnant of a rich cultural tradition carried by the Neolithic migrations that spanned thousands of years and thousands of miles. More information: http://www.archaeoacoustics.org Provided by Mediterranean Institute of Ancient Civilizations

#Architecture #temple #archaeoacoustics #consciousness #quantum consciousness #music #Lost Keys of Freemasonry

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