Fearbasing

Element One: Everyone’s Story Starts Somewhere

My favorite times are spent under the stars

to open-eye dream about the wonders of life

To then awake inside the warmth of the sun

that brings a pause to my strife’s.

Even an active storm with rolls of thunder

and bolts of lightning place me in awe

As it carries a cleansing shower of rain

to center me into an emotional raw.

A warm breeze brushing a light rain

across the rushing flow of a waterfall

Showing many forms of one natural element

throwing me into a peacing-out free fall.

My eyes then peer through the thin falling streams

to see a hidden treasure cave

This dark space is lined with glowing Dragons Gold moss

to be explored by only the brave.

The rain continues its travels to water the flowers

that bring brilliant colors

As they give a place to sunbathe and pick up a little pollen

for baby bee visitors.

Honeysuckles filling the air with the smells

of delicious yellow and white nectars

And sunflowers to give us a sight to behold

and seeds for flying collectors.

Everything in nature is connected by the energy of life

that breathes and moves with brilliance

From the horses galloping through a field of green blades

to the fireflies of bioluminescence.

From the warmth of a summer’s day

to the brisk snowy Saturday of wintery moments

Creating an unmatched beauty called nature

by using all its own components.

As nature teaches us to love one another

like a mother dog adopting an abandoned kitten

We use comforting hugs to squeeze away fears

and sweet kisses to make one smitten.

To love ourselves within an essential oil bath

that releases warm flows of steam

Allowing its mixture with the neighboring rose candles’

dancing smoke streams.

As you go through life, throw glitter on the bitter

and turn the music up to rock your senses

While existing with an unknown but true purpose

resulting in meaningful consequences.

Carry gratitude in your intentions and empathy in your heart

for those in your midst

To help create a personal environment and a time in humanities history

that is purely blissed.

Nothing can compare to the serenity and virility of nature’s unlimited power of creation and beauty. But not all of us see it for what it is as we only see what we’re taught to see. When you see with all your eyes and intertwine your energy with the energy of the universe, reality will be so provocative and electric that you will think you’re dreaming. You can stand in one place, for one minute, taking one slow inhale and releasing one slow exhale at a time. With each singular movement of oxygen and CO2, you have a vision that leaves you speechless and unable to move or think correctly.

Inhale, you see red blood cells that flow through your circulatory branches and fingers.

Exhale, you see your lungs pushing out your breath.

Inhale, you see air going through your nose.

Exhale, you see the fingerprint of your right index finger.

Inhale, you see this same finger moving upward to feel the crisp air around you.

Finally, exhale, your eyes’ focus moves from your fingertip to the distant scenery. Lines become sharper, colors become bolder, and life shows its truth. From air to dirt to trees to crystal turquoise flows in the valley. This is the perfect place for someone of my nature. With the typical dealings of always busy, always people around, always listening to the phone ring, always point A’ing to point B’ing, always serving others. While through all this, sometimes showering and sleeping. But throughout all the grinding moments, I feel as though this is not a human’s intended existence.

I feel this way because I don’t feel...real until I’m standing within the walls of Havasupai Falls at the Grand Canyon. These walls are not typical of what one thinks of when that word is mentioned as these walls are both confining and freeing. Solid yet fragile to the earth’s elements. Overwhelming yet attractive with mystery and bewitchment. To take it all in spiritually, I start by gazing at the captivating baby blue skies, working my way to the compact clay walls that glide with different colored layers of age and erosion. Cracks and crevasses hide little insects that have never been seen by a human eye. A hawk flies within the large air space which captures my eyes and directs my attention to the tree upon where it decides to perch.

The green leaves. The white flowers. The freedom to grow as brilliantly as they can, and they do. What aids in this growth is the nutrition it gets from the galaxy of minerals inside its dirt bed that leads to the edge of a gently moving creek of clearness and blue hues. There’s always an intermittent breeze floating through that carries only the smells of earth and life to never allow your senses to know of anything else. This is my soul’s home. My body’s home. My emotional home.

Unfortunately, I seem to be the only one in my circle of fellow humans who wish to live here every day. So much so, I now come here alone as my kids are at the age of wanting to do other things that they find exciting, and that’s okay. Everyone finds their path. So, until the world realizes that we have gone way off track of what humans are supposed to be and do, I shall have both lives. Hustle and bustle of man-created requirements and the necessary magic and organics of nature-created life support. To all this I will admit, I love the craziness that my fellow humans and I get into on a daily.

It was dark but I was awake with my eyes closed. I was shivering as my lungs filled with frigid frosty air. Their voices were silent, but they were out there somewhere. Just not sure where. My immediate environment was inaccessible to my touch as I was wearing gloves along with a bodysuit that had armor along the exterior. The boots were probably heavier than my entire body garb. I needed to make a move even though I knew there were sharpshooters on the enemy’s squad. It was time to go for it or pussy out. My eyes shot open as I secured my weapon to my chest with my finger on the trigger. My situational awareness kicked in to enable me to formulate my move. There was a huge tree protecting me for that moment, but I could hear movement to the right and rear of my position. I saw a bush move, shaking snow from its leaves. Footprints go from that tree to that other tree. Lastly, I saw a private’s headgear peaking above the slope that they were obviously laying against. I decided to take the shot.

Safety off, finger trigger ready, butt against the inside of my shoulder. I brought my muzzle to the side of the tree and locked my sight on the bush that I saw moving. I pulled the trigger back, pop. I gained confirmation of my hit from her scream which was followed by her falling into the bush slightly. Then I saw the red streaks upon the snow. Splashes. Score 1 for Sergeant Sugar. Unfortunately, as I had taken my second step from behind my tree cover, I began to take on fire, so I threw myself back on the ground and placed myself fully behind the tree. When the fire died down, I drew a mental picture of where I needed to shoot and in what order. Live or die!! With snow up to my shins, I ran out as best I could without falling while covering decent ground. As I fired at my targets, fighters were coming from different spaces that I didn’t formulate within my plan of attack. Bodies were down, red was everywhere, screaming, I’m hit, I’M HIT!! I fell back.

Of course, my attackers came over to hover over my face to gain reassurance of their victorious moment. After staring at me for a minute they told me I sucked snowman balls and that I was a loser. They helped me up and we all started talking shit and laughing. Gazing across the battlefield I could say it was another successful battle that had left the coldest abstract painting ever. Lines and little puddles everywhere of all colors were created by different artists. The yellow from my weapon, black from CeCe’s, purple from Halo’s, blue from Zimmer’s, green from Rosko’s and red from Blaze’s. Yellow was the most unfortunate color to have when painting snow, but it be what it be when you’re using high-powered water guns that have food coloring added to them. We did this because it’s really fucking fun and different, especially as adults. And you could see how everyone fired and who they shot. This was our favorite snow game and it’s the only snow game that I took part in because fuck the cold.

Now, knowing that I’m not tickled in the very slightest by cold’s existence which was created by the devil's internal and external sphincter wrinkles, this must allow you to presume that I preferred the warmer of plays. This put me first in line at the water park rides, roller coasters in the spring, beaches in the summer, and safaris for vacation where I left winter in the US. Then when my husband Blaze was home, we enjoyed going to outdoor shooting ranges and drag races. We had been together for five years, married for three. For six years he had been a police officer and then went to SWAT which had always been his dream. I had always wanted to be a sniper because I was small, and I would’ve loved the rush of taking out a mother fucker.

My life was wonderful. Full of adventure, love, tears, healthy food, rockin’ family, just a good existence. My life was happily consistent for the most part, so I never thought there was a change awaiting us in the midst. Just when I thought my life couldn’t get any better, the universe proved me wrong. How? With a child. A baby girl. My baby girl. My first, Blaze’s first, our first child. During the pregnancy, we got the baby room done, got all the accessories for breastfeeding and tons of diapers and wipes. We were completely ready.

After nine months and two weeks of pregnancy, I was super ready for this baby to make her grand entrance into the world. We ended up needing to go to the hospital to be induced because as time will show, this child was created with a stubborn gene. Blaze stayed with me during the whole labor. All nineteen freaking hours of it. But, giving that final push and hearing that cry, I knew it was more than worth it. She was the most beautiful chubby bubby baby I had ever seen. And the way Blaze reacted when he first laid his hazels upon her greens, I could tell he was going to be such a good daddy.

Time to go home. Typically, I didn’t enjoy driving at night, but this night was just too blessed to find a single thing wrong with it. The stars, the moon, the thin random clouds, the crisp air. This little one just may have changed how I felt about nighttime. We lived in the county so there weren’t that many streetlights or other cars on our journey, so I could concentrate on making friends with the darkness. I was extremely tired, but Blaze and I were happy to keep each other company with conversation the whole car ride. Even left the music off, which we rarely did, as the conversation was mostly detailing what we would like our future to be from that point forward.

The silence between our statements seemed to be the sweetest of silences as well. The sound of contentment and peace. After spending five days and nights in that rachet hospital with the dings, the dongs, the crying, and the food made by the little paws of the basement rats, the silence was soothing. This car ride didn’t feel like just a car ride. It was the introduction to the next element of our lives. And I was already in love with it.

We were only about fifteen minutes from the house on a little two-lane road with trees on both sides when we came to a truck driving in front of us that was going at a much slower speed than us. Typically, we would go around someone like this, but we had a little one now, so we held our position. Then a car became visible behind us so we were hoping that this douche nozzle in front of us would see he was creating a line and would speed up. Before that could happen, the car behind us decided to go around us and the truck.

We thought it was a bit funny until the car stopped at Blaze’s door rather than continuing to go around the truck. Just as this car had pulled up, a flat metal platform shot out from underneath the truck and went under our car where it slammed against the undercarriage. Blaze hit the brakes, but the car kept going even with the tires locked and squealing. The doors on the back of the truck opened, the front of our car lifted off the ground, and we were hoisted into the back of the truck’s trailer which was filled with a smokey substance. After the trailer doors slammed shut, it was darker than dark. I climbed into the backseat with the baby followed by Blaze. We were all in the back holding each other with Blaze being the calm one with words that gave me a feeling of security and that we would be alright. We all started coughing from the thick air and we feared what was about to happen. With his warm touches upon my arms and through my tears, we kept each other sane until we quietly passed out.

I woke up to see the sunshine, my pillows, and my daughter in my arms as we were lying safely in my bed. I looked around the room and felt behind me to see if Blaze was there, but he wasn’t. My little one stayed asleep as I rolled her off my arm and surrounded her with a couple of small pillows. As much as my blood was racing and my anxiety was screaming, I quietly walked around the house calling out for him. I went outside to see both our cars in the driveway but still no husband was to be found. I went to the shed, but nobody was there. I began thinking that he was outside where I couldn’t see him, so I called his cell. Right to voicemail. The worry started kicking in. The next thing I could think of was to call his parents. They said that they hadn’t seen or heard from him since they left the hospital two days ago after meeting the baby.

That also meant they didn’t know what happened last night. I played it calmly like there was nothing wrong and said that it was just me being weird with it being my first morning home with the baby. After hanging up the phone, my worry became engulfed by fear. Where was he? The baby and I were okay but where was my husband? My daughter’s father? Did he go to work for some reason? I thought about calling his superiors, but I didn’t want to do something unnecessary. I had a history of jumping to conclusions too quickly and making things worse. The only thing I could do at that moment was wait. While I waited, I was reminded that I had mommy things to do when I heard a high-pitched cry coming from the area of my bedroom. Someone was awake and hungry. I needed to stop trying to recreate what happened less than five hours ago because it was pointless. It happened; time to deal with the current moment. I couldn’t do anything about it on my own anyway. I would need to wait for Blaze to get home.

It became night. I was keeping the house quiet as this helped me rock her to sleep as we sleepy-by danced in the living room. The only sounds I could hear were soothing sounds of the baby and random thoughts in my head. This also kept me calmer than I would be if there were a shit ton of sounds or activity. I needed to be fully present for her. As we were both in a lulled trance, something slammed against the outside of the front door. I was torn on if I should run to it or run from it. So, I waited. Again, there was a bang. Holding my daughter a little tighter while crying in silence, since somehow the bangs didn’t wake her, I slowly moved from the living room towards the hallway that led to the bedroom in case I needed my gun from my nightstand.

Then a third bang which was louder and more demanding. Whoever it was tried to open the door, but it was locked. Since they couldn’t open it, I think they tried knocking on the door, but it wasn’t a normal knock. Something was hitting the door and then sliding down. Deciding to take a chance, I went into my bedroom and placed my baby girl in her bassinet. Luckily, this didn’t wake her, so I grabbed my gun, walked to the front door and looked out the peep hole. Someone was lying on the porch, but it was too dark to make out who it was. I turned the porch light on. It was Blaze. Why on earth was he lying on the ground against the wall? I stopped looking in attempts to keep calm then I looked again to scan the yard and driveway. I didn’t see any people or cars.

Then I realized I had a fucking video doorbell. I grabbed my phone from the kitchen counter. I still didn’t see anyone else, but I needed to be fast just in case there was something weird going on. I looked out the peephole, he was still lying in the same position. I moved back, grabbed the doorknob, and counted to three. I flung the door open, grabbed his legs, and yanked him as quickly as I could into the house where I unfortunately fell twice but eventually got him inside.

Slamming the door shut and locking it, I was petrified at what I saw. I couldn’t tell how alive or on his way to death he was due to his physical condition. His life was leaning into both possibilities. He was completely covered in blood that was wet in some spots and dried in others. Clothes were torn, black eyes, and pierced through the throat with a very thin, pin-like object. The pin must have been why he couldn’t call out to me. I placed my ear against his chest, he was breathing so I called nine-one-one while keeping my ear to his chest to hear every heartbeat. Just as I was being told that the cops were about seven minutes out and the ambulance was right behind them, I heard glass shattering followed by the feel of Blaze’s body jolting and me getting splashed in the face with something.

My automatic reaction was to take my head off his chest and let out a small scream. He let out a grunt and his eyes began to water. Looking at his upper body where my face was just seconds before, I saw the bleeding from a hole in his shoulder. I wiped my face and there was red all over my hands. I looked behind me to see a hole in one of our windows. Someone had just shot him, and the bullet went right in front of my face and into his shoulder. I started screaming into the phone asking why the EMT’s and cops were taking their sweet fucking time. Then I heard the sirens followed by seeing lights coming in through the blinds. They banged on the door, I crawled to the front door, and they rush in, made sure he was stabilized, packed him up, and hauled ass to the hospital.

Surprisingly, Blaze was quick to recover physically. However, his emotional and mental recovery may never happen according to the doctors. At the time, they had no idea how true that statement was because it would take him longer than most other people due to certain circumstances. See, whoever tore him apart that night wasn’t done with him. And because our daughter and I lived with him, we started being small targets as well. At the time, I didn’t understand anything that had happened or was continuing to happen. The only thought that went through my mind was that this person got pleasure from inflicting hell on him. They wanted him in the constant fear that they could kill him at any time, and they ensured that he lived with the fact that there was no escape from them.

He was so close to death that night outside that it wouldn’t have taken much to finish the job. So, the only thing I could think of was there must be a reason why they let him live. This person’s goal could be anything and multi-layered because he didn’t die but he’s going to live with the terror that happened to him. To be fair, I guess you could learn coping techniques to deal with something like that because you know it won’t ever stop and you must live the best you can through the expected and unexpected events but when it’s as intense as what Blaze continued to go through, I would feel comfortable saying that coping is an impossibility for the strongest man or the most centered human being. Even Gods and Goddesses of all cultures and deities had their limits.

There were so many tactics they used on him specifically and us that I couldn’t keep track. He was stalked, threats were carved in the hood of his car, shadows lurked during the day, and ultra-bright headlights beamed inside our home throughout the night. Whispers from the depths of an unknown body would be heard in the grocery store. Emails from a dark web encrypted account would be received through the toughest firewalls. Texts from a binary-coded phone number. We were being haunted by the living. We couldn’t sleep due to the pebbles at the windows and the back door being kicked in by our invisible serial stalker.

You heard him. He was there. But you never saw him. He just kicks it open, sometimes yells obscene and evil things then he runs. A couple of times, the voices came from loud handheld recorders that they threw through a window. The lasers through our glass panes would land on all three of us with shots never to be fired. Blaze discovered their position a few times when he hunted them like they were hunting us but every time he arrived where they were, they would be gone. He would find warm coffee or flat footprints that only showed the outline of shoes or odd shapes. They were professionals at doing what they were doing and knew systematic tactics and processes including mental warfare.

The only thing that made sense to us was that they were part of a tactical team like the one he was on. Just didn’t know if they were his brothers and sisters from his team or another district or even state. Maybe they were ex-snipers or military. We were thinking about moving to the other side of the country but if they were who we thought they were, it wouldn’t matter. It wasn’t going to stop until someone wasn’t able to play the game any longer. And since all the players were good at the game, we figured it was never going to stop. But what the fuck was the reason for all this? We were good people, never hurt anyone, never got mixed up with the wrong people, and we had good families, good friends. We were absolutely baffled which made it much more difficult to figure out how to make it stop.

After the main event of him being battered, he was diagnosed with PTSD holding numerous triggers, lots of anger, OCD, insomnia that only allowed him to sleep during the day, and deep seeded paranoia. These were the symptoms that enabled him to produce such a fear of everything around him, I had to be careful of every move I made or tone I carried with my words. The fear also caused him to be extremely overly protective of me and our daughter. I was okay with it at first since I knew what he was going through and there was a true concern for our safety, but then it got to the point where Blaze would barely let our daughter walk from the front door of her school to his car when he was in line to pick her up. We could no longer continue living as we once did. Freely. With Blaze looming over us every second, it wasn’t helping us cope with the situation.

The only thing I had left that I could hold on to was the Blaze that was trapped inside of his torture-created state of mind. It was like he was two people in one body. And I don’t mean just a deformed mindset or that he was simply displaying over the top anger making him seem like he wasn’t himself. I would look into his eyes or at his face when he was having an episode or a flashback or a temper tantrum and he physically looked like a different person. The shape of his eyes, the shape of his mouth, his jawline. His jawline honestly may have been from him clenching his teeth together. His raw, animalistic emotions would create faces that I had never seen before. Emotions truly are connected to the physical body. When these physical changes began taking place, he was put on paid leave from work, which made his state of mind even worse. He was working in the office since he wasn’t able to deal with people or tough situations, but it had turned into a whole new danger for him being at work at all. What a world he must have been living in, being forced to endure those soul-changing torments inside of himself with nobody able to help him.

As time moved forward, he expressed new negative traits along with what he would consider coping mechanisms. The worst one was the denial of reality. He was denying his daughter, denying me, denying his entire life. Straight denial across the board. He would forget things constantly and he didn’t take care of himself hygienically. I think it’s safe to say that he morphed into a being that was ¼ Blaze and ¾ his suffering. After keeping his distance from us for a while, the simplistic act of denying and ignoring us had grown into an angry hatred. For me specifically, his hatefulness carried abuse on all levels. It was almost like he was pissed that no matter how hard he denied that we were there, we were.

Being fed by the consistent torture by the shadow people for just under a year, Blaze had been driven to an insane level of consciousness. He heard voices that caused headaches so strong that his mind would be on the verge of going into a seizure. One argument between the two of us was so severe that I thought he was himself for just a moment but the reason he came back to himself never should have taken place. He was screaming in my face about something arbitrary that turned into him telling me that I was created by devil cum. I had my back against the wall while looking to my right with my eyes closed.

I was able to tune out the majority of his words so I could keep as calm as I could. Then, I heard him tell me to look at him. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t move. I felt paralyzed by my fear. So, he grabbed both sides of face, pulled me away from the wall then slammed the back of my head right back against it, almost through it. As soon as my head hit the surface, he released me. His hands and arms went all the way out as he walked backward staring at me, crying, and shaking. It was Blaze. He had just traumatized himself so hardcore that he came out. He held his hands in front of him, looking, examining, confused, flipping them over and over and over. Very slowly and still shaking, he formed two masculine, powerful fists of fiery.

He screamed as loud as he could in pure disgust and hopelessness which gave him the strength to begin punching himself in the face. He wore himself out after just a few punches because he already exerted so much energy screaming at me and crying uncontrollably. I took his shortness of energy as a good thing because he may have only landed a few punches, but he busted both his top lip and eye open. I didn’t think my heart could break any further for the man that I was so deeply bonded to. I was losing him once again as he was being physically battered and mentally raped by his own means. And I had to watch it and hear it happen. It felt like it was in slow motion and hearing the clicks of a clock’s second hand reminded me that this was the rest of my life. One second after another. Until the end of time or until the second hand breaks off its gears stopping time altogether.

After nine years from that fateful evening when he was bloody and shivering outside our front door probably begging his body to stay alive, there was still nothing I could do for him when he had episodes. Of course, I don’t think he had ‘episodes’ anymore.