once again, the real and the virtual meld in odd ways.
this time, the return of a friend losts in the days of silver hand, vel, for short. she returned about three weeks ago now… and it has been interesting to see in her all the things i knew and went through.
she knows as i do in this moment the truth of that place, those people. like miira, she speaks of it as nightmare and loss, and expresses how thankful she is to find the house alive and strong and well, and how thankful she is to return to our friendship.
and, like i was initially, she has a need to unburden the suffering and pain of those days, and to speak the words of accusation and anger. i have listened and in many ways her words are not unlike my own were. the same people. the same reasons.
she names him a vampire, creating negative and hurtful circumstances and insisting people navigate them. i never thought of it like that. perhaps i should have. she speaks of a month long coma and the pain dealt in it to others, heedless and thoughtless and careless.
yes, i remember. i knew this of him.
she speaks of repeated abandonments and the demand that all suffer for his need to wallow in suffering.
yes, i remember. i knew this of him.
she speaks of the ceremonies of loss and the great care with which he crafted them, tormenting all so he could feel relief.
yes, i remember. i knew this of him.
but when she speaks of fault, i have to disagree with her. the fault is shared, as we, each of us, chose to remain. allowed his mindless need for misery. allowed his abandonment ceremonies. allowed it all.
the reasons vary. vel stayed for hope it would be different. but her hope died with my leaving, so she speaks in this moment. and she spoke on of still more of his leeching after that moment, things i did not experience on silver hand, but found in different ways on the new realm.
she left them finally, when the hurt of it overwhelmed the hope for it. most did. and when she returned she didn’t look to silver hand. she looked to the one place she knew it would still live, if it lived at all. and she found us. and for all it is a virutal world, the tears were real for both of us. hers to find us, me, and mine to see her returning.
she still talks about silver hand. anger and pain being pushed out so healing can happen. and i am glad my own healing has been underway a time, so i can be for her an understanding and gentle presence. i was fortunate to find two who were willing to be that for me in the new realm. and i am humbled and honored to extend that to another who never deserved the pain, for all she was no less willing to turn from it than myself.
we both admit the difficulty was for seeing what could be and striving to it, unable to accept those who held the reigns on silver hand were incapable for the wounds they brought and would not permit to heal.
she spoke to me of a thing that reminded me of something he once said. she spoke of his manner of experimenting on others. this, a thing the snake accused him of, and a thing he often and loudly denied.
i have since come to accept that his denials were ever the most pointed evidence, hands waving to distract the eye from a truth he did not want to see and could not afford anyone else to notice.
vel is healing. slowly. as am i. as are all those who have staggered out of that haunted house of silver hand. i hope such healing really does find all of them. especially those i can no longer fool myself into thinking will accept it from me.
it is odd. somewhere in this talking with vel, a last, lingering hurt has been sealed, healed. perhaps it was simply having someone say i wasn’t imagining it, that it really did happen just that way. so many in those days embraced delusion that i often felt i must be the one who was deluded.
i know today that this was never so. i know it because miira speaks the same. i know it because vel speaks the same. i know it because several others who have asked i not breathe their names say the same.
i know it because in this moment, the haunted house is empty and the poor souls, myself included, who suffered in it have staggered out and slowly found their way free of its poison.
and i know it because the one house that was warded from such behaviors lives, thrives, grows, and knows nothing of the horrors we embraced. this house is free of the corruption of pride and will to dominate and careless, mindless manipulations in the name of self-absorption.
the fears that were worshipped by him do not live here. the nourishing of them by snakes is not possible.
i give thanks to the universe for it. for all of it. lessons learned and for waking us from the nightmare. thank you. thank you.