by Emily Hung
With each step, the world crumbles. White ash flutters down, coating the streets like the first snow. Thick, heavy smoke clouds the air and pollutes your lungs. Each inhale burns like fire, another breath lost forever.
Keep walking…
Behind you, your city becomes glowing embers and concrete dust. The crowds of people disappear into the haze, leaving behind only their crescendoing cacophony of deafening despair.
One foot in front of the other…
The smoke thickens, gradually at first, until the air is opaque like morning fog. Milky tears seep from the clouds and fall endlessly into the abyss around you.
Go further…
Somewhere behind you the world must’ve fallen away, leaving you alone in this empty world without even a shadow to accompany you. The infinite void absorbs all sound into its colorless universe, leaving you in complete and utter silence.
Look deeper and remember…
White isn’t the absence of color, but all the colors combined. You aren’t walking through a void, but a world of blank canvases. The colors are inside you, vibrant vibratos of violet and brooding ballads of blue. Forests of coniferous green and fields of daffodil yellow. Citrusy clementines and ripening strawberries.
Find it within you…
With each step, blades of mossy green grass sprout from the ground, expanding into rolling hills. Feel your joy sprout bubbling springs beneath your feet, its crystal clear water carve streams around you. Your energy radiates golden rays of light, illuminating the landscape and warming the air. Your wisdom pulls ancient oak groves up from the rich soil. Your breath blows gentle wind through the fields and your voice fills the sky with songbirds.
Look around…
Look at the paradise you create. See the beauty that comes from within you. You are omnipresent. The lilac foxgloves spotting the fields, the black-capped chickadees nesting in the trees, the rippling ponds, the cascading mountains.
Realize…
This is why you’re alive, right now, right here. You have so much to offer. Within you is an irreplaceable paradise. Your wisdom spans forests, your energy radiates like the sun. This is you. An oasis within the chaos.