See red undulating, an ocean of burgundy.
Beautiful? she wondered.
It wasn't an ocean of blood. It was only her imagination. She knew without awareness, without knowing, that the distant wailing and moaning was not her imagination. She could touch the surface, disbelieving. She could watch and wait. She saw no birds in the sky. She heard an agony of voices.
In her mind there was a single piece of paper floating on the stained surface of the imaginary ocean of blood. It tossed and tumbled in the ruby waves. "Maybe it's nothing," she said aloud to no one.
Maybe it's nothing. What could a blood-soaked page possibly reveal that she didn't already know? Could she even read the smeared, sodden scrawl if it were real?
“Everything is OK.” Unsigned. That would be all it said. A message from the grave. A pat on the head from her ancestors who could impart nothing more than their own collective experience which was, in its essence, exactly the same as her own but with less electricity. Quieter. Maybe more honest. More brutally honest.
The sound of misery arrived in the breezes of her mind. She was not dreaming. She only imagined the wine dark sea. The people were truly everywhere suffering. She sat there on top of her pyramid remembering and reminding herself that this space is and was and will be forever and never. All at once. None of it was her responsibility, her making, her will. All of it was hers to change.
She stood up and walked down the stairs. She jumped into the ocean.