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The light dimmed. Like a candle nearly sputtering out, the threat of shadows flicker at the walls around me. Cold, dark, empty. The very air about me a warning. "You should not be here." No. I must agree. But here we are. My hands grasp into the nothing, silhouetted against the looming darkness. Softly...carefully...we cannot lose what slivers of light we yet retain. My feet shuffle...is it dirt? Is it dust? Is it sand? My toes curl against the slippery grit beneath my feet as I trace a wide circle - reaching, groping at the darkness and finding nothing to hold onto. Skirts sway against the shadows - do we exist when we cannot be seen? We rely so much on our eyes, who are we truly beyond what we can see? A ticking starts... barely audible, yet echoing through the blistering din. Tick. Tick. Tick. Illumination, at last. The brilliance rises at my back. Instinct spins my body about to face it - to face...what? The light glows from a reflective portal, its sheen an opalescent white, its surface seeming to whirl, waves that swirl and drift and form shapes that only disintigrate again... Peculiar. I find my feet carrying me forth, though beyond my own control. And as I approach, I can see the pearly face begin to clear - gradually at first, until all that I can see is a face coming into frame, blurry and distorted, a confusing muddle, a shape that is clear yet with features obscured. Tick. Tick. Tick. And as I draw closer and closer and closer still... The reflection clears, the form blotting out the light behind it. I am her. She is me. It is my face, clear: a mirror. Yet something is wrong. Something that I cannot quite explain. Cannot quite understand. Cannot quite...even know. But something. As my brow furrows I can watch it do so, my reflection matching my every move. I raise a hand, she raises her hand. I place it upon the glass, she holds hers to mine, palm to palm. I tilt my head to my left, she tilts hers to her right. I wink my left eye, she winks her right eye. But something...something is not right. Tick. Tick. Tick. When her lips open and mine remain closed, I find validation. "Every flutter reminds you: the self you lost is never coming back." It is then that I am aware of the fluttering feeling in my chest. My knees weaken and buckle. My arms fall limply to my sides. My head begins to pound. My vision grows dark at the periphery. Tick. Tick. Tick. I blink hard, trying to grab my head with hands that will not obey. When I open my eyes, my reflection has changed. She is smiling. Lips cracked. Teeth missing. Her skin now green, rotting, covered with patches of fuzz and rot. Her eyes are dark, nearly black, and rimmed with blood. "Tick, tock, my love." When I awake, I am home, in the familiar halls I haunt with my back pressed against the usual pillar. I rub my eyes. Was it a dream? Maybe. Yet her words echo through my head as I feel a flutter in my chest: "the self you lost is never coming back." Bat'Sheba | |