The first thing I saw was my feet. White toe nail polish almost glowing in the vast darkness. And I do mean vast darkness. A void so deep that I was afraid to utter a sound. Afraid it wouldn’t make it from my lips to my ears. The weight of the darkness would crush them before they could materialize.
My body felt almost weightless. It was that sensation you get when standing on the edge of a high diving board. Wiggling your toes over the edge into nothingness. True nothingness.
I moved my head and neck to the full range of their abilities. Leaving my feet planted in their spot. Darkness enveloped me on all sides. Should I breathe? I had to breathe. My lungs burned with a desire for air. Air that was sterile. Void of any flavor. Good or bad.
A ball of light whizzed by my head. If it made a sound, it was absorbed by the darkness. I tightly shut my eyes. Half afraid it would knock me over. With great caution, I squinted to see the ball in front of me. Motionless. Soundless. No light emanated from it. It was just a round ball of white light.
It floated before my eyes. Inside the light I read, ‘Fighting with God’. What? What could this mean?
I was so focused on this ball and its message that I hadn’t noticed the hundreds of balls that now danced before me. Some were different. They ranged from bright white to pale yellow. Several of them flickered. As if they were about to go out.
A flickering one moved from the far back of the pack to my face. Between flickers I was able to read, ‘Mad man at my door’. The flickering messed with my sight. Forcing me to close my eyes.
This one was yellow, ‘5023’. Another bright white one, ‘Buck’. Then it dawned on me. These were stories, poems, things I was working on in different stages of production. Bright white ones were complete. Yellow, was a work in progress. While the flickering ones were ideas.
The darkness suddenly started moving. It startled me. What now? The vast darkness. Endless darkness seemed to turn itself into round shapes bouncing off each other in a helter skelter fashion. Some of the balls turned gray.
This gray one said, ‘thank you’. It had been an idea that I hadn’t used. Didn’t know how to form the right words.
What were these black ones? No. These? NO! These couldn’t be all the ideas I had rolling around in my brain. Some of them brushed up against my skin. Causing it to tingle. While other seem to dance in my hair. I imagined my hair looked like it was full of static electricity. Clinging desperately to the orbs.
Do I really have so many ideas bouncing around in this small brain of mine?
I held out my arms. Wanting to feel the vibration against my skin. Was I floating? Did these orbs have the power to lift me from this vast darkness? How many of the black ones would I be able to turn white?
I smiled. Wanted to giggle but refrained. Wanted to shout for joy but remained quiet. Secretly afraid I would scare the ideas away.
Poetry & More 