ʙᴜʟʟᴇᴛᴘʀᴏᴏғ│ᴛᴋ [complete]

ᴇᴘɪʟᴏɢᴜᴇ

He did not experience the need to peer inside so, again, he left it unopened.

He did observe the empty seat.

Curious.

The word had emerged unbeknownst to him.

What is curious? The voice was back.

The chair, he replied.

Why is it curious?

He got up and looked around. Grass. Sky. Tree. There was no one else but him. Which is why he had found the presence of a second chair curious.

Who is it for?

The voice did not answer. It shut the sun down instead.

The next time the lilies appeared before him, he noticed they had multiplied. The pond was covered in specks of colours which twinkled before him. He saw how they were all different shades and how they brought life to the otherwise lifeless scenery.

Beautiful.

Another word he had not realized he knew.

Pleasing to the eye, he promptly added before the voice could ask what he meant by that.

What is pleasure? The voice questioned instead.

Again, he acknowledged having reached the limit of what he could comprehend. He did not know how to define pleasure other than...

Happiness.

Where did these words come from? He had no idea. But he did understand their origination was a direct consequence of new visual stimuli.

He looked around for further chromatic catalysts but was met with sudden obscurity.

This time, the tree appeared different. Its foliage had turned red. But apart from that, everything else was the same. There were two chairs, just like before.

He did not sit.

He went around the tree, in search of what was missing.

But no one was there.

He chose to settle on the grass instead. Looking up, his eyes prickled under the white beams. He brought his hand up to shield them.

Too bright.

The voice did not comment on that.

And the blinding incandescence did not recede.

He tore his gaze away and as he did so, something trickled along the side of his face. He put his fingers up to touch his cheek and encountered moistness.

Tear.

This he knew what it was. "A watery secretion produced by the lacrymal glands to lubricate the eyes." He understood the light could dry them out and refrained from staring up.

He studied the tree instead and noticed it was losing its leaves. One by one, they fell onto the grass and the mat below.

He picked up a foliole that had come to rest by his hand and took a closer look at it. The tiny veins of the serrate leaflet stretched out in a deceitfully messy pattern. Perhaps it would have grown bigger, had it not died so soon.

Its bright yellow colours were worthy to be called pretty, but it was not the word that rose from the depths of his mind.

Melancholy.

And close behind.

Sadness.

He tried to make sense of them, but his cognisant abilities fell short. These words, like the others that had sprung out of the void before them, belonged to another realm. One that was neither physical nor conscious.