He was somewhere warm, where he felt comfortable and safe. Sure, everything in his cloud was all hazy grey and he wasn’t able to put anything together, but that didn’t matter because he was away from the pain.

Pain? The vague concept came to him sometimes when he thought too much. Why was he connected to so much suffering? He could see it and could almost feel it at the edge of his warm comfortable place. From his perspective, it looked like foul darkness with numerous writhing tendrils desperately reaching out to him, trying to grab a hold of him. Whenever one of those tendrils had got even remotely close to him, he had felt the pain come through in a torrent, a violent storm. And oh what pain it was, it left him trembling and screaming, it scared him to his very core. Therefore, he pulled back further, immersing himself in this safe, warm, cozy place. Somehow, he had realised that if he desperately ignored the tendrils, then they would get further and further away. This made him happy and he continued to let himself drift.

One by one the tendrils disappeared and with each that did, he felt safer and more at peace. The cloud he was in floated gently towards an ocean of brilliant calming green. Suddenly, all that mattered to him was this endless green ocean where he could sense an indescribable feeling of tranquility. When he was down to the last tendril, he felt almost nothing, just pure serenity and despite having little ability to reason, he instinctively knew that when this last one disappeared he would finally be free of the pain. No, free of everything and would be able to join the sparkling green ocean forever.

The last tendril was fading now, becoming translucent just like he was, and he felt his very being fall apart and merge with the infinite green. Nothing mattered or existed anymore.

Or did it? Something had changed. He couldn’t make sense of anything, but just as had been about to slip away forever, something had indeed changed, or, more accurately, was holding him back. It came into his awareness slowly, a taut vibrant blue line that appeared to be attached to his being and which led and disappeared back off into the void. The line was stretched so thin, his instincts made him realise that if he drifted any further away, it would snap. Well that was what he wanted wasn’t it, so why was he hesitating?

The blue line stirred him, it caused him to try and understand and it called to him. It seemed to be made of light, or some kind of energy. A sizzling volatile energy that reminded him of something important, but for the life of him, he couldn’t find the coherence in his thoughts. Perhaps if he followed the line, things would be clearer. Slowly, hesitantly he began to drift in that direction, and as he did so the line of energy became thicker and stronger. And in turn, so did his consciousness. The energy in the line was potent and frightening, but it thrilled him.

On the other hand, he could feel the beautiful green ocean of peaceful gentle energy begin to fade away and a concern suddenly welled up within him. What if, after he had followed the blue line to its destination, he could never find his way back to this place? Instinctively, without any conscious idea of how he did it, he retained some of the green energy and bound it to himself, mimicking the blue energy line that was attached to him. The result being, that he now had two of these energy lines attached to him. Where the blue line’s energy was dynamic, volatile and alive the green line’s energy, though in no way less potent, was soothing, peaceful and calm. He now felt more at ease, knowing that, at anytime, he could simply follow the green energy back to the ocean.

But, the nagging feeling wouldn’t stop and he just had to try and understand what the blue line reminded him of, so he continued to follow it with determination. As he did so, his consciousness continued to recover and so did the recollection of the pain. And as the familiar writhing tendrils began to materialise around him, he noted that their movements were now restricted by the blue energy, which snaked around the entire darkness holding it back. While it could not fully contain it, it made it feel manageable and in addition, he realized that he was also drawing courage from the green energy, it calmed him and helped him better rationalize all that he was experiencing.

Despite being better prepared than he had been before, he nevertheless felt scared and hesitant. However, he now understood what he had to do. He needed to overcome his fear and face this pain that had almost caused him to cease to exist. So finally, steeling himself and drawing on all the resolve he could muster, he moved his consciousness towards and into the darkness that was his pain.