Task in class: Describe a beautiful place
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The whiteness surrounded me like a thick woollen blanket, numbing my every sense, yet keeping me suspended in mid-consciousness. There was no time in this place, no way to measure it if there were, so I lay or fell through this infinite purgatory, neither alive nor awake, for what could have been an eternity. Yet all things change.

A spark.  A flicker of something, something immensely powerful, only just touching me, careful to do just that, as if too much of it would bring a terrible consequence; as if too much could cease my existence instantly.  It barely feathered across the confines of my dormant mind, like a flame licking softly, gently but surely igniting something within me, however small, it was enough. A spark was enough.

I was curious. I started to observe, with greater accuracy, the shimmering white lights that canopied me- something I’d never noticed, no, been able to notice before. As I did my consciousness grew stronger and every day, for now I could feel time in a tangible form, I received additional ideas. This new consciousness, the power of coherent thought, was indeed a paradise.

The lights grew stronger and with them my mind craved more-  more knowledge, more answers-I was ablaze with questions, tumbling and emerging in and out of my head , some too quick to gain a hold on, others forever present in my subconscious waiting to surface:  Why was I here? Where was I? There must be more to this- this searing endless white.

As soon as that thought had blossomed, bright and bold enough to say aloud- or would have, had I known speech then- the whiteness pulsed, blinding me with impossible strength. I no longer knew whether I was swallowed by the light or wallowing in darkness. For I feared the later.

I’d left that place, I could feel- really feel -with alarming accuracy the blustering wind cutting through me, the deafening sound of it, accompanied by my racing heart, like a thousand horses stampeding through my new born ears. I could taste the pureness of the air and smell its sweet scent. I looked at myself. I had a form:  fingers and hands, arms and torso, legs and feet; all flailing through the weightless air. I realized I also had eyes, without which it would be impossible to see such things.  I could see, I could feel, I could smell, I could taste, I could hear. Somehow I knew all this, words and names and feelings and senses. Somehow, I knew exactly what I was.

Human. Alive and human.

The wind stopped. I was no longer lying or falling, I was stood straight, feet planted on a solid surface... and I breathed. And as if it had been waiting for just that- a shuddering breath to blow it all away- the darkness fluttered and dissolved around me, like a flock of birds taking flight- perhaps they were birds -this place, this new sable world was so foreign to me, so surreal, I knew not what to expect.

Its beauty left me agape.

The black flock had dispersed into oblivion, and in its absence had revealed- like lifting a veil off a magnificent, magical masterpiece- the most breathtakingly glorious, outstandingly beautiful place my aching eyes had ever gazed upon.

Granted, one might think my opinion may have been bias; considering all I had ever gazed upon with these fresh, new eyes until now, had been a numbing, eternal white. But regardless, even If I had seen all the marvels of a world I knew naught of: the rise of a sunset at dawn, the reflection in a mirror of a full moon at night, the sun light as it filters through the tree leaves of a great forest, the spray of water as ferocious waves crash against a cliff-side, the bright, warm colours of a rainbow over a spring meadow or in a tiny, oily bubble just before it pops, the crimson redness of spilt blood on white snow or the azure blueness of a cloudless summer sky.  Had I seen all these wonders, far too many to record in any scripture, they still would not, and could not, have swayed my judgement of this place.

For this place was perfection. This place was love and hope and adoration, and all things good and sacred. This place was beyond measurable or comparable beauty, nor could it be expressed fully enough in mere mortal terms. This place was absolution.

We all know this place, each and every one of us. We visit before we are born, and once more when we depart for eternal rest. This is where angles sing and divinities loll, where dreams are incarnate, and legends are real, where creatures of myth frolic and play. This place was a true paradise.

Something emanated from the deepest depths of my essence, vibrating every fibre of my being from the hairs on my skin to the blood in my veins, every cell in my body seeming to cry out in overwhelming elation. Like the spark, it exploded into life, and a new understanding washed over me: I knew this place, and I knew it well. I also knew its name.

This place, I thought, as I fell to my knees, my body shaking, is the Silver City. And nothing could stop the icy white tears gushing from my golden eyes, or my quivering pale lips kissing the soft cold ground. “The Silver City”, I mumbled out, so weakly, the words almost inaudible in my broken choked-up voice. “I’m Home.” My body convulsed violently, and the tears continued to pour.