Fire

A tear of light infiltrated the room. The bedridden figure was illuminated beneath the folds and shapes of the covers. Her glazed over eyes did not perceive the light, but its warmth persuaded her fingers to twitch at the stimuli. At one point the room had shape, color, smell, and feeling. Her memories provided a vestige of what it used to be; the shelves full of porcelain dolls, the powder blue fabric that swaddled her form, the swaying ferns in her window... she could only grasp a series of vague, cacophonic senses that gamboled in the afterglow.


There was the bed. To her, it was always there, a constant, unshifting object of undeniable tangibility. It never moved, she never moved, but the world around her unraveled constantly. Strangers spoke to her often. At times, she could feel the warm hands of the gathered voices on her cheek, but the words they spoke came out muddled and indiscernible. They cried, laughed bitterly, played music in the form of colors, shapes, and sounds. With this, the pathways through the realms were like lakes of blue in which she sailed. A melody of currents that brought her the movement that she so desired.

Seasons changed in a subtle palette of her senses. Memories of smells, tastes, and sounds emerged to the surface of her limited consciousness. She knew the names of every foreign voice in her realm, but perhaps they were unaware of their own identity. To the woman in the bed, she knew the truth behind this reality that the souls mourned. Bliss lay within the cracks of the walls, and a series of chords resonated hollowly as the voices’ fingers plucked against the ivory bones of an ancient, sleeping beast. How little there was to know when everything was perceived in such a sense of order.


Among the ship she sailed, there was the great orange light that accompanied her. She called it at a whim to the end of her bed, to the clocks as they ticked no longer, to the beams above her head, and the little trinkets the Voices’ loved. How great was her light. It shined so vividly for those she adored. They captured it quickly, and so urgently. Bringing buckets to quell the dancing glow that adorned her sheets.

There was unimaginable joy in the presence of the light. It spread to every recess of her imagination. For once, she was not only able to perceive her own reality, and she could communicate it to those from realms in between. They hesitated from capturing the essence as it dispersed. The fields of golden flowers spread further and into the other rooms. The appendage at her side, the foreign, twitching arm, steadied itself. She lifted it, consciously, for the first time she could remember. Her vision penetrated realities as she watched her fingers react to the orange light, turning black and glowing. The colors grew infinitely, and the shapes unwound and disintegrated. She saw the voices, young faces on old, decrepit bodies. She knew them, absolutely and completely, down to every breath, every deviant thought. They writhed in the orange light before remaining motionless. Strange expressions clad upon their visges before it all melded with the canvas before her.


Then, she let go. Her mind fell through the aether, being greedily pulled away from her daydream. The beams of the house fell from the heavens, the light devoured the bed. A shrill, painful ringing grew louder, coalescing from her collection stolen perceptions. A lofty cloud held her in a final embrace before it all faded sublimely into darkness.