Abstract #5

Minds and minds beget shadows churning shadows, churning shadows…
Through vales and glades the light shows grave amongst the thistles,
All souls will visit, pointing out errors and sad songs of the throstles.
So succumb to the wake, and follow the flow to the ocean,
Giving of all that you have and all you once were,
You’ll earn your reward and believe life’s colours forever
Without distance and time or darkness, just light in your eyes,
Bringing minds and minds and shadows churning shadows on the way.

Abstract #4

Months before he saw the light, he heard it, speaking strange words, pouring them down some dangling gossamer thread into his ear.
It spoke in verse about his mind, the journeys it had made and the greater distances it had yet to travel.
Rather than being afraid, he found the voices oddly comforting. He was a lonely man, he was a weary man; the voices soothed him. He thought, if this is ‘going mad’ then this is surely the best way to get there. No screaming angry conversations warring in the brain, but a pleasant other, reciting poetry and soothing away the pain.
He did not see the light until seven weeks after he’d first heard the voice. At first he was just aware of a trickle, a tiny beam that seemed to be bouncing in the top left corner of the room, right at the edge of his worsening field of vision. It seemed to jump across from wall to ceiling, joyously skipping between surfaces as the voice spoke gently and purposefully, mirroring the rhythms of the speech.
The man was able to ignore the growing light though, passing it off as a result of his crumbling eye-sight, or as a common hallucination associated with the curvature of the eye.
Each night though, it grew larger and it gained some depth and distinct form. When the voice came to him again, on the third day of the ninth week of the phenomenon, he turned his head from his television and faced the thing.
Strange and shimmering it floated, translucent, like some arcane jellyfish, wispy and stretching, small arms of light constantly moving, reaching out, perhaps reaching for him. In its centre was its glowing heart, and from this pulsing emblem came the voice, beating with the same meter as the voice; light and sound aligned.
Each day, the thing grew larger; the voice, even calmer; its tentacles, closer to the man’s face. “One day soon,” said the voice, “my fingers will enter your eyes.”

Abstract #3

He was very far from darkness then, light poured and rushed into his mind, but if light is all you can see, are you any better than blind?
Slowly though, colours appeared. And then they became shapes. The shapes were moving, an achingly gradual movement across the white desert. It was impossible to be sure if they moved towards him or he towards them, but a conveyor had seemingly been set in motion and an eventual meeting of shapes and mind had been set into inevitable motion.
The scene flowed on, gripped by a glacial entropy and soon his consciousness could make out legs and heads and arms, and the colours were in fact the bright colours of summer clothing.
Some of these figures walked side-by-side, others alone. Some appeared adult while others, mere children. He strained to recognise them, but he couldn’t quite reach into the depths of memory to recall them, couldn’t quite see their faces.
And then the entire scene froze. A small boy in red shorts had halted before him and everything else paused. The boy raised his head slowly and seemed to regard this man entirely, though it was impossible to discern if the child had eyes to see.
With a grave, creaking, eternal shake of the boy’s head the scene began to reverse, much more swiftly now, yet solemnly, until the colours and shapes disappeared over some scant horizon and out of view.
Just white remained. Just light.

Abstract #2

And for the second time that night he saw the light coming.
He was blinded, apart, but he was aware of a warmth and then it slowly drove across his mind; the light, crawling like a caterpillar or digging like a worm through the air.
Soon a terrific wind blew up, and he felt his hair rippling, fronds on end, shock and awe. Still the light drew its messages in the room.
The man wondered if he was screaming, he couldn't tell, but he knew his mouth was open wide and the gale was ripping into his front room. It felt like he was standing, horizontally, outstretched from the edge of a cliff – the void rushing and billowing warm gusts and currents of air thick with the taste of ash.
And then the strange sulphurous air was replaced by a lilting calm. He felt like a velvet cloak had been draped over his entire body and the colour filling his eyes changed to a ragged shade of peace.
The light continued to waltz slowly around, but he was ready now and he began to shut his eyes to the music of the beam, slowly succumbing to the beat, grabbing onto the entrails of light and pulling on them, following them home.

Like Tantalus

Somewhere in the corner of her mind, the light buzzed on.
Seeping through tiny wrinkles between her eye-lids, the cracks of light crept. She flashed her eyes open and the glare throbbed maliciously.
She let out a whine and rolled about on the white single bed. She put her head under the pillow and wrapped it around her face. She shouted down the hall for someone to come and turn out the light.
It stayed, taunting her, just far enough so that she couldn’t reach. Like Tantalus in Hades.
There probably was a light switch, but one never seems to see them in a place like this. They lie in dark corners, hidden from all but those who roam the halls and wards by night and have arcane knowledge of all such switches and dimmers.
The woman might have gotten up and somehow denied the light of power, but she could no longer rely on her legs.
So she turned instead to her clock. It was lit, gloriously, by the unrelenting bulb hung above her bed.
She watched the clock face. She saw the hands turning; one slow, one swiftly, one almost undetectably. They ticked ever onwards until three o’clock came.
Almost to the second, the lights rested at three o’clock. Perhaps an unseen timer controlled their rise and fall?
The woman turned over to sleep, but her restless mind was filled once more. This time a sound: tick, tick, tick. She almost screamed but reason held her, just. A sturdy wall and a strong arm meant this torment was easily restricted.
And then, sleep. Sleep was coming.