Monday, July 16, 2012

Brilliant Lights


BRILLIANT LIGHTS
Ryan Andrew Kinder
               I can’t see for darkness has consumed me whole. I think I can feel my body, but it aches in strange ways. Think! I can’t seem to recall much of anything. I feel my baser instincts trying to kick in. Survive, they scream. However, I find that I’m searching for what brought me into this inky blackness. I’m moving now, but I can’t tell you where to or what towards because it’s nothing in every direction. Panic is setting in. I’m trying to breathe, but that seems foreign to me. Remember…
               I remember something. A family. Mine? Yes, mine. These thoughts are slowly streaming back. Hazy, as if echoes. I’m concentrating, as if on the brink of losing this connection. The images in my mind are becoming slightly sharper. I can make out one boy, one girl… and my wife. Yes, that’s it. We’re in the family van and it’s night time. I’ve got these images, but it’s difficult for me to settle on them. The very last thing before the darkness I can remember is pain.
               A light! I can see a sliver of light! It feels like it’s a million miles away, but if I can somehow move these aching limbs I can escape this void. It’s as hard a task as remembering. The crash. As I move, I’m remembering: The bastard ran a stop sign. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. The crunch of the impact, our car in flight – the first roll, the second turn over and then succumbing to the darkness.
               The light is my way out. It’s my way back into the real world. I thirst for it and it’s growing. It has grown from a sliver to a giant crack. I can already feel the warmth from it and it is good. I hope my family is safe. They should be, the van won all sorts of safety awards. I’m still worrying, though, for them and myself. Once I emerge from this cocoon of nothingness, what state will I be in?
               I hope I’m not dead. The light is growing and it’s all the more appealing to me. The light at the end of the tunnel. Heaven. I don’t want to be dead. I don’t even believe in any of that religious crap, anyway. Oh God, if I am dying – please don’t take that seriously. I want to live, but if there is an afterlife, please don’t make me go to the other place just because I didn’t believe.
               I crawl just a little further, moving limb over limb. I can’t tell where my body begins and where my body ends, this process is numbing. That light – my god, it’s brilliant. The closer I get, the better I can see it. A light like I have never before seen in my life! I need to see even more of it. I can’t even think beyond this light.
               It’s like love, sex and pure joy. The colors, I can see so many colors in the light. A million glittering rainbows are cascading over me, wrapping me in a blanket of immeasurable warmth. I’ve never seen some of these colors before! Wait… I was trying to hold on to something, it’s right there… on the edge of my mind… but, oh! Is this light amazing, or what?
               I want to be with this light forever, have its awe inspiring hues rain down on me. I’m as close as I can possibly get now, here is where I will stay. I don’t want anything other than this magnificent feeling. I don’t care for any other existence. This must be heaven I –
               Pain. Familiar, excruciating. It washes over me, suddenly. I feel the light growing distant, once again. I can see little, out of one eye. I turn it round, trying to make out shapes. It’s a person. They’re… gigantic. I’ve never seen anyone even one millionth their size. I’m losing consciousness. The giant is moving his mouth and speaking:
               “Don’t worry, I’ve got it! The little bug is dead, so you can stop crying! Wasn’t even a threat to you. It probably would have crawled in the light fixture and died, anyway.”
               The whole world has faded away, now. I can’t see for darkness has consumed me whole.

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