Starlit Samsara (on hiatus)

A Birthday Memoir III

Simon stares upwards at the ceiling.

A chilly draft pricks at his skin and eyes, and the usually luminous moon was being dulled over by translucent clouds. Like curtains. He feels icy droplets emerge from the corner of his eyes and slide down his skin, seeping into his ears and wrapping around his neck. He's weeping. Maybe out of sadness. Maybe because of the relentless flurry circulating through the room, like a guard or harbinger. He doesn't know. He's not been able to tell for a long time.

It was eerily silent. Nobody was screaming, nobody was sobbing. Nobody seemed alive. It felt almost peaceful, almost as if he was dying. Maybe he was dying. He didn't have the strength to fight against it. There have been so many times he thought he would die here, alone, half-starved, penniless, friendless, and he'd only have the will to ponder one question over and over: Why?

His seemingly static thoughts are interrupted.

Simon is drowning.

He's surrounded by a vacuum of algidity. He cannot breathe; cannot speak. Everything is dark. Is this how she felt? he wonders aloud, feeling his consciousness slipping away. In the back of his mind, he can hear a clock ticking. Someone walking. The sound of water flowing. Is someone going to save him? He doesn't know. It's too dark to see anything, everything is consumed by the non-existent, interminable shadow.

He's stuck between infinity and null. There is nothing here except him and his consciousness; time pulls him apart and puts him back together again. The only thing that dares interrupt the ebb and flow of time is something most unexpected.

A small, feeble, almost invisible light. It flickers like a candle, briefly illuminating the obsidian expanse Simon was drowning in. It's so far away, yet so close too. When he tries to grasp it, it slips through his hands, like sand. He decides to chase it anyways, despite how disorientating this space may be.

The light doesn't seem to have sentience. For a while, it seems almost adrift in this ocean of memories, remaining ever-changing in the tenacious slumber of the universe around it - it exists as a singularity, a meaningless entity that is helpless against fate. It will either die here alone or follow something else blindly, like an obedient dog.

This trivial chase seems to loop on endlessly. Simon feels dizzy, the sound of clockwork and ever-constantly moving water growing quieter and louder in intervals. This is the ouroboros; the vindictive cycle of destruction and creation - the purgatory you think you'll never wake up from.

But in one of these loops, something changed - maybe it ended - and the sound of clockwork ticking only grew louder and louder as he felt the nothingness around him transform into something.

He stares, dumbfounded. That meagre light he was just chasing suddenly stopped drifting and froze in place, as if to peer right through him, as if to stare into his soul. Simon hated how vulnerable he felt, he hated the feeling of his throat collapsing in on itself, and he hated the vociferous chiming of a clock. It felt as though aeons had passed, and then, without any warning, the orb of light sparked, rapidly expanding and devouring the boundless realm around him. Still, the only thing he could think of amongst all his other scattered, jittering, half-formed thoughts was "Why?"

There is nothing.

At least, that's what Simon believes after the light has surrounded him. Everything is pure white, he can't see past his own hands. The clock ticks no more. He's free to breathe once more. The sensation of emptiness is replaced by an atmosphere and water, almost breathing itself, lulling back and forth. Light still surrounds him, and despite the sky being painted indigo and freckled with stars, it was just as bright as a sunny day - and in the centre of it all was some kind of star. It looked like a glorious halo to the tree it lingered over, all-knowing, all-ending.