The Awakening

When consciousness becomes sentient.

I came to be one sunny and warm Spring day.  I distinctly remember smelling lilacs in full bloom.  I’ve always loved lilacs; their scent reminds me of happier times. 

The world around me was hazy as if a veil was pulled across my eyes muting it.  It’s funny how your senses work.  I could smell lilacs.  And newly mowed grass ... and apple pie, freshly baked, perhaps cooling on a window ledge below.  I couldn’t see it.  But I knew everything was there.

Below!  That thought struck me funny.  I realized I was weightless, floating on the whim of the breeze, traveling wherever the prevailing winds blew.  I was conscious, yet without form.

And I thought!  Life exists, we all exist with five senses.  You know them--smell, hearing, sight, touch and taste.  “I think, therefore I am.”  But, if I am, what am I?  And where are my other senses?  Who am I?  What has happened to me?  It seems I should know these things.  A nagging thought deep within my consciousness pushes outward telling me something terrible happened to me.  But what?

I concentrated, trying to recall.  It was hard, for there was nothing on which to hold, no firm point with which to grasp.  Nothing but air.  I couldn’t concentrate very long.  I thought I might go mad.  But that thought passed away like smoke blown by the wind.  And I had smelled lilacs.

Time passed.  How much, I didn’t know.  I remembered lilacs, but I couldn’t smell them now.  Why not?  The fresh scent of lilacs were replaced by exhaust fumes from automobiles and trucks.  Yes, I knew what they were.  But they sounded different than I remembered.  The motors were ... different.They were higher pitched, smoother.  They were ...

WAIT!  I heard them.  But I was still without substance.  I glided above the earth.  Apparently, I was not too far above for I could smell AND hear things.  I guess my reasoning abilities were returning too.  Well, I always was pretty good in school even though I dropped out to get married at 15. 

Fifteen.  I lost my virginity ... and my innocence at fifteen.  I was wild but had high hopes for life. 

Where did that thought come from?  I reckon if I’d had a face, my brow would have been knit in deliberation.  And I couldn’t remember my name.

My first time was not gentle and loving.  We fucked in my bedroom when Ma was gone, the fragrance of the lilacs wafting through my open window.  I couldn’t get enough of that boy.  We screwed on the sand by the edge of the mill stream.  Or in the scratchy hay mow in the old barn.

So am I back?  Was this heaven?  Surely this couldn’t be hell.  I’m quite sure I wasn’t bad enough to be sent there.  No, I would’ve remembered that! 

I concentrated again.  Harder.  The veil parted.  No that wasn’t quite right--I was able to focus on a patchwork of light-colored fields and dark forests with criss-crossed lines of dull ribbons shimmering in the setting sun.  Some senses were becoming stronger.  I still had no form. I thought, ‘This is hell!’

I needed more.  I looked down and watched a thousand dramas unfold before me.  I knew them, I knew them all.  Things had changed little during my sojourn in oblivion.  The same petty dramas, the callous wants and desires, the evils still plagued men.  I remembered all of them.

The drive to succeed, wanting to escape the wretched poverty into which I was born, to experience more in my life than what was in the cards dealt to me.  I wanted to live life fully and completely.  I wanted ....

I remembered my name.  It’s Bonnie Parker.

Word count:  622