//|\\ john williams \\|//
3 a. m.
From unrecognizable dreams, his eyes creak open slowly, sparing the dark the shock of his silent gaze. The blackness filters in, lightening with every stoic moment until broad shapes can be deciphered through the fogless shroud. A bureau, a door, a mirror reflecting nothing against a burning orange backdrop of bright stormy sky. But no gusts echo against the window frames. No rain massages the pavement like children dancing to rhythmed spontaneity. The paper walls of the house, so often voicing their opinion, collaborate secretly with the hardwood floor to allow not a whispers disturbance.A great sense of calm encompasses him, as if he had journeyed into a wondrous fog where only infinite shapes and a quiet orange glow distract him from absolute nothingness. He could sense his breath, feel it fill his chest effortlessly and patiently, and radiate down through his abdomen, his legs, and his feet, where it expels from his toes and out into the weightless room that packed densely with life from corner to corner, standing bare, however, to blind eyes. Here he his heart sang:
Within a life
rests a brilliant orb;
Supple yet firm,
humble yet powerful;
Everywhere I wander
it trails me like a shadow;
Yet its home is within,
its journey both there and without.
He turned his head to the right, placing his cheek on the soft pillow, and gazed deeply, longingly at the vague outline beside him, not requiring it to sharpen since a template had molded into his memory like a fresh doe print on rainless soil. Her breath was quieter than his own, but, by running his hand beneath the sheet and upon her breast, he could feel the delicate heaving that filled her with life, and its expiration, which didn’t dare take it from her. His own breath, that so filled his concentration moments before, was forgotten, as her balanced, smooth song entered the palm of his hand.
Something swelled within him like an eternally-expanding balloon. This unreasoned, natural feeling surpassed any happiness he received from a personal sense of calm, although the two were mysteriously linked. It funneled his tranquility into her body, where something external was added, before flowing back through his hand, his arm, his body.
Two inert forms lay on the flat bed replenishing each other with slumbering vitality, and both were aware although neither realized. Lost within this new yet somehow ancient hybrid creature, he silently began to recite lines that he had never heard and which would never be remembered, as he journeyed back to reclaim a lost dream.
Oh respiring emperor, conqueror,
merchant of breath, peddler of all;
I yield to thee; I succumb;
I bow as none else permit;
A worshipper you birth
when in slumber you open
your gateway to mine
showing both to be the same.
From unrecognizable dreams, his eyes creak open slowly, sparing the dark the shock of his silent gaze. The blackness filters in, lightening with every stoic moment until broad shapes can be deciphered through the fogless shroud. A bureau, a door, a mirror reflecting nothing against a burning orange backdrop of bright stormy sky. But no gusts echo against the window frames. No rain massages the pavement like children dancing to rhythmed spontaneity. The paper walls of the house, so often voicing their opinion, collaborate secretly with the hardwood floor to allow not a whispers disturbance.A great sense of calm encompasses him, as if he had journeyed into a wondrous fog where only infinite shapes and a quiet orange glow distract him from absolute nothingness. He could sense his breath, feel it fill his chest effortlessly and patiently, and radiate down through his abdomen, his legs, and his feet, where it expels from his toes and out into the weightless room that packed densely with life from corner to corner, standing bare, however, to blind eyes. Here he his heart sang:
Within a life
rests a brilliant orb;
Supple yet firm,
humble yet powerful;
Everywhere I wander
it trails me like a shadow;
Yet its home is within,
its journey both there and without.
He turned his head to the right, placing his cheek on the soft pillow, and gazed deeply, longingly at the vague outline beside him, not requiring it to sharpen since a template had molded into his memory like a fresh doe print on rainless soil. Her breath was quieter than his own, but, by running his hand beneath the sheet and upon her breast, he could feel the delicate heaving that filled her with life, and its expiration, which didn’t dare take it from her. His own breath, that so filled his concentration moments before, was forgotten, as her balanced, smooth song entered the palm of his hand.
Something swelled within him like an eternally-expanding balloon. This unreasoned, natural feeling surpassed any happiness he received from a personal sense of calm, although the two were mysteriously linked. It funneled his tranquility into her body, where something external was added, before flowing back through his hand, his arm, his body.
Two inert forms lay on the flat bed replenishing each other with slumbering vitality, and both were aware although neither realized. Lost within this new yet somehow ancient hybrid creature, he silently began to recite lines that he had never heard and which would never be remembered, as he journeyed back to reclaim a lost dream.
Oh respiring emperor, conqueror,
merchant of breath, peddler of all;
I yield to thee; I succumb;
I bow as none else permit;
A worshipper you birth
when in slumber you open
your gateway to mine
showing both to be the same.