Author: Celeste Higgs

Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime.

The dimensions of height, depth, and width within which all things exist and move.

The freedom and scope to live, think, and develop in a way that suits one.

The near vacuum extending between the planets and stars, containing small amounts of gas and dust.

Space refers to the distance or area between, around, above, or below.

Space in an artwork can be achieved by techniques such as using perspective, detail, distance and overlapping. Perspective is created by lines that converge towards a vanishing point. Overlapping requires for two shapes to be the one in front of the other. Our lives could suddenly be derived from these definitive terms by which art can be created; with the only exception that our composition was not aesthetically pleasing at all.

It became the black minimalistic space between us.

The space between us started growing bigger and the blackness slowly filtered through the visible cracks of his stubborn silence. No overlapping was possible in this empty, cruel distance of his seemingly assured reality. I desperately started to concoct ways of swaying him back into my reality, but with disastrous consequences…….

As I looked up at the sky in search of my clouds, they had cruelly vanished into the abyss of the liminal space of my horrifying existence. As I made a feeble attempt to cope with my new nightmare, the empty skies only gave me perspective lines that would never be able to converge at any point in time. These lines instead became light footprints that lay bare the ghostly evidence of my (aesthetic) past.

He walked away and the empty space carved deep lines into my heart.

“Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”

― Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason

“But only he who, himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows.”

― Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?

https://www.goodreads.com

I eventually found the courage to slowly lift my head and painfully start peeling my eyelids from one another. It was an agonising process and I was afraid of what I would see. When I did find the courage to look, I noticed the two-dimensionality of my once picturesque clouds. My dream has betrayed me. The clouds have turned into shadows without colour or depth. The realisation filled my body with murderous anxiety:

We are shadows of our past.

I moved into my own space in order to physically remove myself from the source of my agony. At night the starry heavens above, instead of soothing my nerves, betrayed me. The clouds obscured the perfect globe in the sky. I could clearly see the shadows caused by the moon’s brightness on the cold cement of my palace’s walls as I started speaking to God. The liminal space became strewn with memories. Questions. More questions. And no answers.

The silent monster would and could not speak.

I have never been afraid of shadows. But the panic caused me to want to hide and run from it towards the large, empty abyss of my seemingly black future. The liminality started stifling me and I could not sleep for three months. Endless nights. Creatures outside my window visited momentarily and then, as if to taunt me, slowly disappeared into the shadows. It was followed by another conversation with God – more tears – songs in my ears – words – memories – betrayal – shadows – darkness. I suddenly remembered my message from the universe and I realised that it was there to comfort me, I somehow found the nerve to start looking again.

There must be something out there…..

a body’s relative mass or the quantity of matter contained by it, giving rise to a downward force; the heaviness of a person or thing.

a piece of metal known to weigh a definite amount and used on scales to determine how heavy an object or quantity of a substance is.

hold (something) down by placing a heavy object on top of it.

attribute importance or value to.

https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/weight

For a long time hereafter the clouds escaped my sight. I started to feel the weight pulling me downwards. I did not know what to do, and I let my head hang in order not to see too much. Eyes downcast. Too scared to face reality. But I had to somehow lift my head in order to see where I was going.

I suddenly notice the clouds from above as we slowly start descending downwards. The weight of it all is too heavy. I instinctively reach out for his hand as I have done what feels like a million times before. He sits non-responsive, cruelly showing no reaction. I am alone. No reassurance as we land on the barren earth. I am scared, like I always am before the wheels hit the tar. It is not a good landing. The plane jumps back up before hitting the solid surface beneath us. I feel the panic taking control of my body and soul. But I sit quietly, bravely looking down at my feet, trying to find the courage to get out of this vessel. The realisation that he left me long before he uttered the words transforms my body into a large mountainous rock. Its monumental weight makes the landing even more difficult. I should feel light – we are in my favourite city. The place of storms. A place I loved. But could not anymore, for it has stolen my rock; my mountain.

The storm is here.

Cape Town, November 2018

The camera became too heavy. I could not lift it up to face the clouds. The beautiful expanse above my head escaped me. My Mountain disappeared in the clouds. The lens was black. Uninspired. Heavy. Like that mountain.

There exits a dictionary of dreams: “to see murky or dirty water in your dream indicates that you are wallowing in your negative emotions. You may need to take some time to cleanse your mind and find internal peace. Alternatively, the dream suggests that your thinking/judgment is unclear and clouded. If you are immersed in muddy water, then it indicates that you are in over your head in a situation and are overwhelmed by your emotions.”

https://www.dream-of.com

My floating, endless drifting journey suddenly turned dark and clouded as my head hit something waiting just below the surface of the clear, reflective meniscus of the water. It started a quickening of the current. An uncontrollable force started taking control of my body as I was pulled just below the surface. I lost sight of the spectacular cloud above my head.

I cannot keep my eyes open. No. I can’t breathe. No. I can’t see the auspicious rays of sunlight beyond my beautiful cloud. No, please, no! My head is now completely submerged and I involuntarily close my eyes. No. It is dark. I can’t see. I hear the words, but can only see darkness. I can’t speak.

No.

Uitsig Estate, 14 July 2018

I remember it clearly; for it is now etched in my mind. It was a Sunday evening in the kitchen and we were surrounded by the cold reflections of the stainless steel around us. In a clear and calm statement he finally uttered the silent secret when I was brave enough to ask the question.

My head hit the rock underneath the water. The current turned into a dark, muddy whirlpool and the world went black. As I came up from the darkness momentarily, I saw that the sky has now changed, and I could not recognize it anymore. The clouds became dark, eerie premonitions of the words of doom. But it did not matter anymore. The current was whirling around my head, I got sucked in deeper and deeper into the darkness. I tried to breathe, but could only taste the dark pieces of hard earth in-between the sticky, muddy mess. I could not escape the words . I stopped breathing for a moment as everything around me turned black, then started gasping for air again. Nothing. Only darkness. Mud. Cloudy water. Fear. I am drowning in our mess.

This is when I stopped looking up at the clouds.

The dictionary says that a current is the part of a fluid body (such as air or water) moving continuously in a certain direction; the swiftest part of a stream; a tidal or nontidal movement of lake or ocean water; flow marked by force or strength; a tendency or course of events that is usually the result of an interplay of forces currents of public opinion; a prevailing mood, a flow of electric charge and the rate of such flow.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/current

It happened gradually, without me noticing. The current started from the calm and clear source of our amalgamation. It was slowly and sinuously moving forward into the future. Almost gracefully, perfectly composed in our seemingly perfect earthly palace.  I embraced his beauty and felt safe in the aesthetically pleasing exterior of our life together.

The fluidity of my journey on this picturesque path seemed natural. I had to fight and concentrate on staying afloat, though, and my journey was not fluid. I couldn’t follow the impulse of steering into my own direction. The current was calm but persistently too strong for me. I learnt to go with it. I will survive, because there is beauty present – my nemesis accompanied me on my floating reality.

Providing I could see the clouds above, I felt safe.

I ensured that they were visible from my vantage point as I was moving gracefully with the water. Floating in my almost perfect reality. The clouds were overbearingly beautiful. Aim. Click. Aim. Click. A picture perfect image. Captured.

Captured.

Currents are usually influenced by what is lurking under the peaceful exterior. Mine was no exception. The clouds above gradually started turning darker as I continued on my Ophelian journey into the future. The plants underneath the water started scratching my back lightly, but I could endure it. I moved my body slightly away from the current in order to not experience the pain. But every time I made an effort to escape I was drawn back cruelly into the inevitable current of destruction. I was unaware of what was to come.

The clouds became darker. I am used to darkness…. so why could I not breathe? I did not know why. The clouds were trying to warn me of the journey of doom, and I wallowed in their breathtaking beauty.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-ophelia-n01506

“A mass of whirling fluid, especially a whirling mass of water or air that sucks everything near it toward its center.

Something likened to a whirlpool, as in violent activity or the tendency to draw into its current everything that surrounds it.”

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Vortexing

The liminal space between his body and mine became a large valley filled with a crescendo of emotions. I looked up to the sky to find solace: to escape reality and replace it with the safe space of my dream – my world in the clouds . It escaped me.

Instead there was the dark, bewitching vortex of charcoal and payne’s grey just ominously towering above my head. Just there. Suddenly. Unexpected at the end of a beautiful summer’s day. It enveloped my whole body and my soul started uttering an anxious scream. I could not escape to my beautiful dense and bright orange Cumulonimbus dream awaiting me beyond this powerful, painful current. The dark cloud was keeping me from reaching beyond.

I wanted cry out for help. But there was only silence. I could not speak.

A storm was on its way.

The eye of the storm

The eye is possibly the most recognizable feature of tropical cyclones. Surrounded by a vertical wall of thunderstorms (the eyewall), the eye is a roughly-circular area at the cyclone’s centre of circulation. In strong tropical cyclones, the eye is characterised by light winds and clear skies, surrounded on all sides by a towering, symmetric eyewall.

https://www.cs.mcgill.ca

On a seemingly perfect day, there was a clear message in the sky. I sat in the passenger seat of the car, aiming the lens to the sky. The beautiful textures and nuances caught my attention. Nothing else. Aim. Click. Aim. Click. Silence. No planning. No words. No feelings. An empty car contained and enveloped two quiet souls. The sky caught on camera. My heart and soul were wanting to ask the question, though. If only I knew what the question was. As the wheels whirred and warmed up beneath us, the long, straight, and narrow road spread out in front of me. I was calm – almost too calm. The road led us back home to my dream that I desperately wanted to make a reality.

No thought process was involved in this motion of aiming and clicking that my body and mind have now become accustomed to. Until I put on the magnifying glass(es), necessary to see the detail of the snapshots.

And there it was: my message in the sky. An eye.

Using this calm winter’s day on the road back to my picture-perfect worldly home, God and the universe concocted a profound message, intended only for my eyes. I cried when I saw this, but did not know why. I did, however, know that it was a message. I did not look into people’s eyes anymore. I could not and would not face what I could see there, I only had eyes for one thing in my life. But little did I know……

This day became the symbolic silent premonition of my storm to come.

The eye was softly talking to me, wrapping me safely in the realisation that someone greater than the universe was in charge of it all. The universe spoke to my soul and prepared it for the storm to come.

The liminality still to come, the terrible dark cloud that cast a shadow on my soul lasted two years. I now understand that it was governed by the clouds above.