Falling

Nine (Fire)

Orange ribbons flash out of a white hot ball that's chasing away all hints of the night's star-studded sky, throwing red-flashing tongues that lick the color from the black veil and illuminate shadows gathering in its adoring circle. Sam's mind trails off into the light and the past throws a distant memory into his brain.

The years peel away, like paper wrappings, revealing the young man who'd found himself among knowers and seers. They told stories that reside beyond the core of what he'd recognized as friendly circumstance.

Summer camp had taken him every year hiking into the woods, swimming in the river and, of course the stories told around a warming campfire at night.

This night the fire had burned images into his mind of heads shaking yes, different colored faces so unmistakeable he couldn't close his eyes and wish them away.

A man with gray hair and a face that claimed twin-ship with an ancient leather scroll let deep-throated words gather in the rising air. They hung, suspended before his eyes and drew Sam's inside eyes into their meaning.

"The one who serves will receive."

The several faces agreed, their heads nodding—yes.

Four chairs cuddled around a square wooden table that looked like it'd been thrown together, born out of a left-over jumble of various boards that'd been discarded from a more meaningful assembly of a carpenter's idea.

His eyes drifted beyond the table into the powdery street that carried dust and people down its rubble-strewn path.

The lost opportunity for gainful employment at home and an island-shattering earthquake had brought him here and, that picture.

Now, those words spoken into his mind years ago, were unfolding in the scroll's unrolling. The light.

At first, it was a glimmer, blinking far off, a pinprick. Then, a circle that forced its flatness into a beam.

It flickered in the airport while walking down metal steps from the plane. Two yellow lines made a path forward and into the building where men and women, sported blue suits, their silent hands leafing through my passport. A black face, holding onto a nonplussed expression, nodding—yes.

A heavy-set woman was kneeling down trying to console a whimpering child.

"Can I help you, mam?" Why was I standing there, asking that question?

The little boy looked up, his tear stained cheeks draining pools of water from his eyes.

It leaped out, that little beam of light, from my eyes. It danced into the pools bathing his. The corners of his lips nudged a smile against his chubby cheeks. He didn't say anything.

Just nodded—yes.

He reached for his mother's hand. "I'm okay now."

They turned and headed for the sliding door. She stopped for just a fleeting moment. She turned her face toward mine and nodded—yes.

Some days latter, after I'd found the Kitchen, a little brown book had made itself known in a drawer, making a home in the little table that stood silently beside the bed. I pulled it out. A thin red ribbon reached down between some of its folded pages. I opened it and my eyes fell onto a string of words near the bottom of one of the pages.

"You are the light of the world."

A string of words followed, echoing through my brain.

"Let it shine."

It did. On the street, in the Kitchen. It followed me where ever my sense and feet took me. People stopped whatever emotional disturbance they were caught up in...They stopped when I looked into their eyes. Some just looked away. Other's scanned my face, questions showing up in brains that didn't want to deal with the answers. Every time disagreements dissolved into quiet retreat, walking away—forgetting what had demanded their attention a few moments behind their backs.

"Deny yourself and follow me if you want to save your soul." That's how it sounded to me, when my gaze had landed on a certain page where fumbling fingers had been flipping.

The light grew, at first a seed, then a ball of light that zoomed into a beam when circumstances called it out.

"There you are," Lylas' velveteen voice sketches a new picture on the other side of the day's wake up call.

She slides into the chair on the other side of this pigmy table. Her face reflects morning light. A hand reaches across, fingers cup over the inside of the heal of my hand. They tease my fingers away from an undecided grip on the curving handle of a friendly cup of coffee.

"Did you miss me?"

A stirring emerges from a neglected region—rolling, twirling, dancing.

My eyes reach into hers and fall into the little half moons that swim on the glistening surface of her ebony eyes.

"Yeah."

The word whispers between our faces—closing, falling into those lustrous pools.

My lips reach for her's.

Their hushed embrace brings a pleasurable winding, like silky ribbons, through my body.

Suddenly!

The unexpected approach of sharp voices slaps the moment. We draw our faces back, waiting for the crash.