Cold light flickers incessantly over me, light sent down from a malevolent god, then and now stopping, only to continue.
The cell smells of piss, the food is likely rotten.
The light blinds me! Oh, will it ever stop?
An emptiness that is heavy, words that are empty to me.
But no - stop - take a breath. You are alive, you breathe. You can see the light, shivering between the bars, you can hear the song of the siren, as nectar, you can feel the heat between your fingers.
Yet the throat feels open, the eyes feel watery. The world shutters, shuts itself from me, stutters, legs swinging of sweet summer...
"Up you go now -- up..." A long iron chain snaps and I am awake.
He brings me to the woods that whisper; it seems as if he manifests thawing ice as he breathes. We stand there for a long time, in the center of an opening to the sky -- rocks and trees and grass surrounding us in a circle.
I watch him as he turns his head and body round and round, following specks in the sky. Silver fairies swirl. His face is hardened and hoary and a painted crimson.
The morning is tranquil, the leaves seem to move with grace, their hum of the frozen treants a melody, which is so distracting...
"You don't say much," he says, smiling. "Usually they say something at this point." Contorted knuckles over a bony smile.
Night shatters into view, my body is grasped and nailed at the highest rock, and blood leaves my body in rivers.
