An Extraordinary Morning

As I woke up in the morning, eyes dizzy and back aching, I remembered that I had a workout to begin. Brushing off the sluggishness, I put my legs on the cold ground while being too drowsy to find my slippers. I still hoped to visit the kitchen and get the coffee ready so that the pre-workout hits and I can get started.

What I didn't expect was that the next step I would take toward the kitchen would change everything that morning. My foot found no footing, and it went into the dark abyss that should’ve been a floor. Imbalance caused me to fall.

Bad news hit me straight while I was terrified.

I may not be in the bedroom anymore.

The good news was that my eyes were wide open out of panic, and I was not sleepy anymore. But as the gravity of the abyss pulled me and I soiled myself, I was hoping it was all a dream.

It wasn’t, at least at that time.

The fall continued, but the hope for it to be nothing more than a dream never died. “People wake up when they are falling in a dream,” the thought hurriedly came to my mind, but alas, nothing was happening.

I closed my eyes, hoping to feel the cushion of the warm bed on my back and sweat on my brow, but God only gave me sweat. There was no warm bed; there was only the fall.

This abyss, I realized, was literally unending. I had been falling for five minutes straight and knew that I would be turned to splat when the ground arrived. But would it ever arrive? I did not know.

After 20 minutes of fall, the worry of hitting the ground started to wane. And at the 30-minute mark, there was nothing in me, just acceptance.

I wondered about Vishu, my wife, and the warm cuddle I got before I went to bed last night. Acceptance then turned into sadness. What if the entire world had turned into an abyss? What if she was falling too?

“VISHU!” a shout came out of me that no one heard. The shout was filled with hope that someone would receive it and would say, “GAURAV!”

But nothing but silence I felt — the void was endless. And as I continued to fall, I realized pressure building around my body. I could still breathe, and I could feel my throat vibrating as I talked, but the voice wasn't reaching my ears.

Then came a time when my thoughts were the only thing that I could hear. “It is not so bad,” I said, thinking to myself that if it was just a dream, having your thoughts to accompany you as you fall into wakefulness isn't the worst thing.

Oh boy, was I wrong?

I tried to clench my fists, but I felt nothing. I looked at my hands — there was nothing there. I could not feel my legs either. Then the abdominal feeling went away, followed by my mouth, eyes, ears, and everything else.

But somehow, I could still feel my heart — the heart I could not touch.

Then came the time when thoughts were all I had. I could see the images in front of me, and that’s when I realized I may have entered the deepest part of my consciousness. I could see the images, and the more I embraced them, the more I could feel — and the more I could feel, the more my senses returned to me.

Perhaps it was a signal from God to rebuild myself, I thought, which prompted me to get started rebuilding myself. I started with the hands and used those hands to sculpt my torso and then the lower body. Neck and face came last.

Mind you, the fall was still happening, but the act of rebuilding myself and getting the feeling in the organs again made me realize that the stop could arrive at any moment.

“What a waste. I put too much effort into putting myself back together,” I thought to myself. Thinking that everything was in vain, as the speed at which I was falling was sure to turn my entire creation — my body — into nothing more than mush, I started to lose hope.

“GAURAV.”

I heard that voice — my wife chanting my name, calling to me. Hope was restored again.

“Vishu,” I shouted back in my hopeful glee.

It was enough to give me the motivation to curl my body. “If you find a way to condense yourself as you fall, the damage may be reduced.” These words that I heard on the Discovery Channel came back to me, and so I did, squinting my eyes deeply and hoping for the best.

The fall finally came. There was no pain though, only the warmth of the cushion behind my back and the pillow behind my neck. My eyes opened as I realized that it indeed was a dream, but something had shifted.

I was wide awake and felt every fear and hope that I had when I was falling. I moved toward the kitchen, made myself a coffee, and dished out one of the most brutal workout sessions — happy and renewed about the day.

That was truly an extraordinary morning.