Chases

The familiar comforting warmth surrounds, as the relentless beams of my own personal sun taunt me to come closer—as it always does. As I always love.

I gently close my eyes, blissfully lingering in its warm brightness from a safe distance, feeling its rays pierce through me just enough, enriching me with unmatchable energy, as its magnetic force keeps trying to lure me nearer.

A calm grin gradually lifts my lips towards the night’s sky.

For several straight minutes, I bask in this warmth, now appreciating it even more fully with only the feeling and no longer any sight.

A low, constant humming also instantly heightens with my closed eyes—its rhythm seeming to easily carry me afloat like a leaf in a vast ocean.

You know how, when you close your eyes in an illuminated space, you can still see a sort of dim brightness through your eyelids? Like yes, it’s dark compared to if your eyes were open, but it isn’t quite as dark…as it could be—you can, in a way, still see the faded yellow through your eyelids?

You also know how you tend to not notice something so faint, so subtle, yet so significant…until it’s gone?

Well, that’s what happens next.

Before I reopen my eyes, what little faint yellow I can see through my eyelids is suddenly no more. Things become especially dark—no faint whisp of very-faded yellow, just complete and entire, solid black.

The low hum has also ceased.

I fling my eyes open and am alarmed to immediately confirm: It is completely and unquestionably dark.

Black.

My comforting, warm personal bright sun now entirely gone. And nothing to see, either near or far.

No distinct silhouettes of objects, or shadows of objects, in the distance.

Just pure nothingness.

Am I blind? I reasonably wonder.

I immediately panic.

What happened?! Where did everything go?!

I’m afraid to move around, for fear I might bump into something, so at first, I remain still.

While still in place, I slowly turn around, hoping to see maybe some kind of glimpse of yellow—a glimpse of something—somewhere around me, but…

Nothing.

Just a lot more…

Nothingness.

A lot more…

Black.

No longer intoxicated by the low hum, a sort of rhythmic singing soon catches my attention.

Ringing from a far distance, the song’s rhythm went in the pace of a quickened heartbeat—actually, eerily matching mine in the moment.

Screech,

Screech,

Screech,

Screech…

The song goes on endlessly.

Already, I understand the value of the modest low hum.

A few moments later, another sound interrupts to compete. Much closer to me than the rhythm song, this one is a sharp, drawn-out creak that is quite piercing to my ears and sets off a different kind of panic within me—one such that I now miss the rhythmic screech.

Without thinking, I immediately rocket forward.

If I were in my better mind, I’d go against the sound, but unfortunately, as fear sometimes clouds wise, sound judgment, I happen to instead speed right into its direction.

And here I am, suddenly in the midst of the piercing sound, but thankfully, it very quickly begins to fade.

And then, a variety of shapes and many colors beyond black suddenly appear.

I can see again.

And yet, it still only takes a few seconds to realize I am utterly and completely lost.

My beloved personal sun is nowhere to be found.

Instead, some kind of mysterious, ambiguous yellow—one suspiciously without warmth, as a notable chill overwhelms—brings color and definition to a sea of objects around me.

A sea of equally mysterious, very unfamiliar objects.

And an enormous, soft unfamiliar moving one, just inches away from me.

“Aww dammit!!” a heavy, nasally voice cries out from it.

“What, John?!” another, lighter one yells from an unknown source in the distance.

“One of those damned things got in!!” answers the first before another loud sound—this time, a sort of boom.

“Come here, you little motherfucker!!”

I hover in place, afforded only a few short moments to try and get my bearings, and then…

A set of ferocious engorged eyes charge after me.

A dozen thin sheets of loosely rolled grey with tiny black lines and occasional squares of color whish towards me next as I tried to dodge it—shooting sharply in one direction one moment and then the opposite way the next.

The intense aroma of adrenaline and testosterone reeks from the hot moisture that sprinkles from the vertical flat surface above the traveling engorged eyes.

A mixture of blur and clarity encompasses my sight, with it alternating between fast-moving streaks of color and the defined, sharp lines and edges of other large, mostly brown, mostly hard objects that surround me.

I intermittently land on those large objects, their cold surfaces offering me brief breaks from the intensity of being actively hunted.

I watch as the giant, soft moving object with engorged eyes slowly move about the space, clutching the rolled grey and now moving much more slowly than before.

The eyes, though still engorged, now are less-round and more slanted.

“Come on, you little motherfucker. Where are you…” says the giant object.

I tiptoe across one of the hard, brown surfaces—my eyes remaining planted on the big soft thing as it moves.

Right as it turns in the opposite direction, I take off again.

Oooh, a bright yellow…in the distance. If I can just…make it…. There.

I dive towards the yellow’s direction, but just as I’m halfway there, streaks of grey and black flash before me—the wind of its force knocking me violently to the side.

“Did I get it?” says the voice in excited, exasperated breath. “Did I get it?! I think I got it!!”

Dazed for a moment, with swirling colors and shapes swimming all around me, I am soon able to refocus, quickly relocating that bright yellow.

I zero in.

“Ahh FUCK!! You MOTHERFUCKER!!!!”

The engorged eyes and roll of grey race towards me again, and I dash towards the vertical white, textured surface nearby.

For the next several minutes, me and the grey do a sort of naughty dance.

I zig. It zigs.

I zag. It zags.

It and the crazed eyes make their best attempt to follow—to catch up—but never quite do.

I hide behind smaller objects—well, smaller compared to the big, soft one—and bounce between hard and soft surfaces, trying to get closer to that yellow with each calculated motion.

I dodge in such a way that sends the big, soft object and its eyes and grey in the wrong direction, watching as it thinks it’s getting closer but is actually getting only further away.

I wait a few more minutes as it is now close—a little too close for comfort—to that yellow.

Soon, the same second voice from the distance earlier rings out again.

“Did you get it?” it calls out.

“No!” shouts the giant object with the eyes. “Ah fuck it! I gotta get goin’ — I’m gonna be late.”

Moments later, the rolled grey with black lines is sat on one of those hard, brown vertical surfaces and traded for little, sharp, dangling pieces of metal that clank against one another.

Meanwhile…

The yellow.

The increasingly less-engorged, now more calmed eyes quickly moves away from it, freeing it for my safe approach. And so, I make a go for it.

Just a few feet away now.

Now less than two feet…

Just a foot more…

Almost there…

And then…

Black.

The yellow disappears, along with everything else around me.

I freeze. Is this a trick? Where’d everything go? …Again.

I imagine the engorged eyes more bloated than ever, now inches away and successfully whacking me against the white vertical surface.

“Be back later!” the now-familiar voice calls out.

“Alright! Be safe!” the second voice replies in the background.

The same creaking sound from earlier then pierces the silence that follows, and a long sliver of yellow appears amongst the darkness.

As the sliver grows wider, I begin to see it...

My personal sun!!!

It is the bright, warm yellow I’ve long known and loved, not far from where I remain frozen.

I bolt for it—suddenly seeing as I get closer the giant calmed eyes growing as it again spots me.

“HEY!! HEY!!!” it yells.

But I zoom past it and towards the bright yellow, hunkering down within its metal shelter—enough feet above the big eyes which now look up at me in resigned frustration.

I barely notice the loud boom, same as earlier, that quickly follows.

“Ah well,” says the voice. “You little fucker lucked out this time.”

And with that, it saunters off into the night, leaving me relaxed and again enjoying the familiar comfort of my warm oasis.

I wait a few minutes, to be sure the big, soft moving object with the eyes is surely gone, before again gently closing my eyes.

As the faint, dimmed yellow once again invades the darkness of my eyelids, warm energy begins to pour into me, helping to restore me from the anxious preceding minutes.

And gradually, a calm grin returns to my lips, lifting them towards the shadowy night’s sky.