Once upon a time, he and I lived in Paradise. The colors were fantastical, capricious.  Chimerical and mercurial.

He and I tried a slow-motion jump in the air. But he collapsed under the cover of the night. Badly wounded. Then with some pathos, accorded so-called stricken people, he disintegrated.

I decided to live in a forest from then on. Slackened, slumped sort of, I gazed at the leaves like a grizzled sceptic.

Then, there was a bristle. The leaves on the ground spoke to each other. Night fell. I slept. In the middle of the night, a cobra tapped on my shoulder and hissed in my ear.

“Shush… wake up!” 

I half opened my eyes and then turned around, unperturbed. Then I asked, kind of whispered back, “Who are you? What is your name?”

 “Call me anything you want, Kundalini, Nagarani, whatever. Would you like to get up and get going?”

“Come with me,” Kundalini murmured, coyly.

I longed for the one who had disintegrated years ago. Since I lived in the forest, I was not aware that months had turned into years.

“Come on now,” Kundalini said, Siri-like.

I moved the leaves to the side and stood up. Strange music, maybe weird, denoting some kind of preciosity, kind of sybaritic, filled the air. Music of unquiet nights. A swarm intelligence, kind of A-I like and synthetic, the leaves, fell off from me.

I started Kundalini (Queen of serpents?) mindlessly. Labyrinthine paths of chaos, screeching noise, wailing like in a movie only Pedro Almodovar can make, filled the air. Contrapuntal. Skulls bobbed up and down on each side, their he-hoes in deep, reverberant echoes, clinging to the craggy walls. Man roaches climbed up and down, sort of cravenly. Music by Bela Fleck kept playing in the background: ‘My Bluegrass Heart.’

Peregrination.

We passed by whimsical areas, rooms that had signs on them that said Depression, Madness, Negative Capability, Confusion (permanent owner Keats) as if to add to the original confusions, perhaps called ‘Psychiatry.’

There was a surge of fire along the wall, sticking out their tongues at me at time, burning off into ashes at other time. Surge of fire played alongside the walls, engulfing me at times, burning off into ashes another time. We passed through the inside of a forge. Exiting at the other side in some sort of heated energy.

The craggy walls looked like the sides of a Vail Mountain, perhaps Gore Creek, which I have seen many times.

“The repairs and cementing will have to be done eventually, “Kundalini the queen observed, eyeing the walls upside down. “You have to kind of pay up, something like a toll you know, to defray the cost.” A huge, misshapen shadow loomed against the wall, pernicious to look at. The Shadow tried to shove me to the side, acting like the primary owner of the area, proposing like a long-time resident. Soon, smaller shadows appeared, cackling, and screeching, hovering around the big Shadow.

The chorus of shrills and screeches with all their exuberant clamor started fading out. I saw light at another bend, the shrill of skeletons receding into distant memory. There were waterfalls and gurgling streams, flowery vines draping the walls. A flower laden meadow appeared in vision, with hopping rabbits, braying mules, antelopes, butterflies, thrush listening to the movement of worms, their music. Kundalini lifted her trunk and gazed back, smiled at me and winked.

The queen slithered and lifted the upper part of the body into a firm, sturdy stance.

“This is how I do my yoga,” she said, laughingly. The jewel in her hood glistened in the bright light. She gazed at me, as if she was pouring Love into myself, and said “dance with me.”

I shrank back in fear.

As if to note she took well to understand my trepidation, she muted her talk. Like, all in good time, sort of.

She then said, “Cry till your well is dry. Play some jazz, it is good for you. Want to sing like Rhiannon Giddens? Go ahead. Find your voice. Want to sing like Gregory Porter?

Make truce with your voice, that maya.

Giggle, giggle, and giggle she did, unburden your past, that maya.

Above all, touch the hem of the garment, watch your pain turn paschal.

“What in the world do you mean,” I pleaded.

Okay, Queen Kundalini whispered, twinkle, twinkle, all in good time. Giggling.

With that, she brought her trunk down and bolted into oblivion. Bristle, bristle. I wailed and whined for her to return and take me with her.

She did not heed me, leaving me alone to find my way home, stabbing me right through my heart.

Then. All was silence.