Just Another Light

The smell of this place is….different; musty and metallic. But different, how? And different than what? My mind bounces about for a waypoint as I lay in unfamiliar warmth.

Is this existence new? Or perhaps it's always been and I have only just noticed? My brain reaches across space and time for an origin. I feel like there was more. But what kind of more. How is one to know if there was a before if the now is still unsure?

Two eyes; still closed, a soft button nose, and the simple edges of a mouth. I glide my fingers between my lips, trying to judge their plumpness as they stretch effortlessly across ridges of even teeth. I stand, tossing my head side to side; feeling the weightless waves of a million little dancers bounding across my supple shoulders. My toes bunch together around the warmth beneath them as an irresistible smile radiates up to my face. A familiar heat surges inside my core; the pulse of it radiates out to the farthest reaches of my barren limbs. I know this feeling. It’s me.

With eyes still closed, my fingers slide south across the smooth edges of my waist and down my hips. My hands make waves up the fullness of my legs, stomach, and chest, tracing each familiar crease and curve. As soon as my palms pass over my face and stretch out in wide arches on either side, I gently open my eyes. But then the breath catches in my throat.

Wait, this can’t be right. This isn’t…

…this isn’t WHAT?

The surreal void in which I had so easily played gives way to a spherical prison of frosted glass; and outside…utter blackness. I place my hand on my bare chest and feel the tremendously quickening thumping from within. I pull my hand away and watch distortions of my body’s light forming cruel shadows onto translucent domed walls at the whim of each dancing articulation. My amber warmth radiates between the slenderness of each extremity, distorting beams onto the steel banded supports of my prison. Eyes widening, I step back in terror.

The icy floor shocks my system with its iron grasp as I slip and stumble into the opposing wall. A scream of pain slashes twice through my body as parallel wounds in my back jolt into memory. Where I once lay, a crimson pool haunts. I reach behind to grasp at a phantom; a shadow of what belongs. The flesh is tender and sticky; fresh from the harvest of what was rightfully mine. I gaze at my hand as breath begins to fail me. My palm is drenched in red; shaking in the brilliant light from my chest. Sight begins to haze a welling of fear and rage pours down my cheeks. I lunge at the opposing wall, but my impact leaves only a bloody smudge. I look beyond. On the other side, something more.

Up against its frosted surface I swear I can see shadows moving, gliding through the mist. How could I have not seen them? I wail against the glass with both force and vocality but the shadows hold their ground. One shadow moves closer; closer now.

What could it mean?

I hold my breath in fear. A million heartbeats pass. But then I alight in shock as a rattling patter builds to a steady beat against the frosted dome of my entrapment. Large dewy droplets snowball in syncopation against the glass until their sound becomes one dull rolling tone; leaving tender trails of dripping distortion in their wake. The shadow hesitates and then grows smaller as it moves from view.

Did it see me? Was it in some way connected; the mastermind of my mysterious entrapment?

Or perhaps it was only a poor duped wanderer, unfamiliar with my plight. Maybe with a few more strikes I could crack these frosted walls. A crack would mean anything; everything. Answers.

WHERE AM I?!!!

--------------------- Part 2 -------------------

It was a Tuesday. Kate’s arm held a soft grip around her boyfriend’s secure bicep as they stood in the moonlight on that half-empty street. Light mist hung in the nostrils. The air was cool; not cold. And a gentle hum of distant music lulled the fading sun to sleep.

Tuesday nights were the only night a week where they really got to see each other anymore. Finals week was quickly approaching, which kept him busy; buried in his graduate studies of the in-depth form of tech jargon you glaze over with the phrase “engineering” in cocktail introductions.

Kate was, by contrast, a writer; though only if by “writer” you meant someone who busses tables between the hours of three and eleven. She had a few half finished stories, yes, but the true highlights of her writing career were wallpapered in frantic midnight hieroglyphic post-its across the walls of her cramped studio apartment. The flame of literary aspiration had not yet been snuffed out but was none-the-less choking on the weight of rising costs of living; her time and creative passion drying up like the hundreds of eggs she read she was losing by the day.

Despite her coy intelligence, Kate’s comprehension of the specifics of her partner’s occupational passion proceeded no further than her undying enthrallment with his tireless loyalty; which, healthily or otherwise, filled the gaps left by her loving but tumultuous childhood. She loved watching his eyes ignite with passion at some inscrutable concept of data management or fiber optics. Sure, her collective intelligence was possibly a few points higher, but why spoil that fiery crinkling of his brows and pursing of his lips as every fiber of his being sought to prove some unwittingly adorable point or solve some fleeting problem.

It was that face he was making now, hunched over, plunging into the recesses of local dinner spots to replace their lost reservation. He had done the work, she was sure of it, but fate, like time, was not on their side. He was nibbling the nails of his free hand and batting tousled chestnut curls out of his piercing gaze; a sight that would have usually sent a bubbling wave of complex cravings southward, but this time, her attention was not on him.

The street, while quiet, was bustling with distractions on such a pleasant night. An elderly man struggled to hold open the door of a rusty red Chevy for his lover; the bodies of all three distressed with time and faded aspirations. Down the street, the soft emerging moonlight, through darkening clouds, blanked a shivering woman in hallowed rays as she adjusted the stability of her fortress of discarded newspapers; her thinning golden main, shimmering like an angel in the desert. Even the aroma of the adjacent coffee house was intoxicating; pulling in weary travelers, with its rich, bold, and comforting siren song.

But none of these held Kate’s curiosity more than what should have been the most ordinary of circumstances. Her head cocked slightly to one side in the soft light as she observed a humble street lamp across the cobbled pavement, lighting up with the fall of dusk in chorus with an endless row of her brothers and sisters. She gazed in raptured fantasy at the ominous flickering light. Eventually it became steady and altogether unrecognizable from any other. But she swore she saw something more; something…absurd.

Just there, it happened again! She was sure now. This time she almost felt it was joined by the faintest ringing. The melodic ambience rolling from the pub around the corner fell into the background as her ears strained for this new sound: A gentle, almost imperceptible chorus, like a million muffled sleigh bells beckoning her with dubious intention. When her eyes caught the anomaly again, the ringing was joined by a few light thumps; like a window battered by a handful of fresh, soft snowballs.

“Babe, did you see that?” She encouraged his attention with a tug of her arm. “Dan,” she softly called again.

“Yeah, I’m looking. I said, ‘Did you want Sushi or that new Thai place?”

“What? No, the light.”

“One sec, Kate.”

At the subtle resistance of his arm she gently released herself and glided into the mist of the empty street to feed her blooming fascination. The piercing clack of her boots was sparse and uneven as she approached in oblivious intoxication. All that existed on that street was the humble lamplight bathing her sparkling eyes through frosted glass.

She stared hard, waiting for her overwhelming curiosity to find closure. As insane as it sounded, she could’ve sworn she saw the itty-bitty shadow of a hand…a tiny hand, plastered against the interior of the brilliant dome. Surely there was some kind of logical explanation; a trick of the light perhaps. But a deep swirling force within Kate, a dark, nagging beast, clung to the hope of something…more unbelievable.

But as the black clouds finally released their gentle fury, a steady building tumult of rain drops tore down with reckless abandon, charging at her unwavering concentration. Even Dan, glancing up to see Kate standing in the middle of the pouring street, broke from his previous exploit and dashed after her. As his coat hurled off his shoulders and over her head, she sighed in reluctant disenchantment. Her gaze held firm for one last eternal moment before she turned away from the whirlwind of her heightened imaginations.

Perhaps some things are just too exciting to exist. Perhaps some fantasies are just the playgrounds of the mind. Perhaps it was just another light.