***This is an excerpt from a bit of fiction I’ve been reworking slowly as I get time. It’s barely a long blog post in length so perhaps it’s more properly a teaser. Whatever it’s called, I will eventually post more of it, or even the complete story if I manage a burst of enthusiasm.***

I used to believe in death.

I used to believe in many things. Before the sea change in all I could perceive overtook me, sweeping me away like the current in an ocean far vaster than a mind could encompass. I did not realize how long I’d stood on it’s edge, waiting at the brink of creation for the the inevitable.

Things change.

Are we truly alive? Or are we but concepts… eternal sine waves rolling out into the ether, seeking harmony against which to resonate… There were so many things I believed then, before bit by bit they were broken down for me; crumbled in hands which grasped for those old securities… tried to retain a fragment, a grain of sand in all the earth upon which I could stand. But it, too, was swept away.

We don’t realize how easy it all is. There is a mother, a father. There are friends and romances and moments. Oh, such sweet moments. Bit by bit they build upon each other, forging us in the crucible of shared experience. Green is green, the sky lasts forever, there is nothing beyond the stars except meager theory. And time… that old grognard standing watch over us all, counting each minute and each moment from beginning to end, each passionate glance, each whispered secret… leaving echoes for only his ears to remember. He, too, fades away.

All memories… all moments, reflected in pieces of the mirror self, now broken, tumbling into the void. Now meaningless. There is the void, and there is you… that single, perpetual tone, vibration, energy. We keep it trapped within us always, covering it with layer upon layer of our meaning. But the time always comes when we must face it, enter it, and see what is there.

Before, it was death.

I used to believe in death.

She was young. Hindsight calls her ethereal. A pale creature, drawn inward through every external act. Eyes that looked about nervously and yet could not see what was there. Hair so light it seemed an illusion. Memory fades, the colors are washed away, her previous self the shadow of her reality.

She is a goddess, my goddess.

I remember her shadow. I remember the disdain for it. We are born creatures of dimension. Light reveals, we collect and categorize. Automatons within our reality, moving object A to object B. Trading object C for more of A. The board is fixed and we only rearrange the pieces. We disdain the flawed pawns, thinking ourselves the knight. She moved among us, only brushing against our board. Our objects held no meaning.

Nostalgia and regret blend. Memory dithers and becomes a collection of old, paper photographs. Scenes are acted out across flickering analogue screens behind our eyes and the colors never become clear. We wonder if they were ever real. Even our emotions, once so strong, now ring hollow like footsteps in a deserted hall. There is no thinking like we used to, for we are reborn each instant, every experience teaching us whether or not we are willing. The sweet memory turns and is now the faint ease of an old book. It is only alive insomuch as we will it.

Her shadow, my regret. Her ascension, my salvation. Reality is and is. Things change. There is no death.