The Iridescent Steps

 

In a dimly lit room, seated on a chair, I attentively listened to the ticking of the clock.

A murmur is heard, cutting through the air, a punitive “do you understand what anything means?”

A blank stare, a tap, tap, tap, tap of four tight straight fingertips syncopate on my thigh. I reply, how do I know, I know?

Grin on face exposing a pale set of spotted teeth like a cheetah tucked snuggly in its crescent moon of pale gums; two ticks, pat, pat, on the beat of the clock, over humming the beat, the smack, of a lip between two clicks; uh huh, uh huh!

Witness my demise, as a feint glance toward a glass sphere, with a red dot pulsating, capturing a framed reality, the signal separate from the voice: what can I know when I do not know what I know?

Intermittent flicks, of the red dot, on, off, on, off — pulsate, like infinite turns of a pulsar. 

Abruptly the turns cease, the sphere dims, the light pulsates no more.

The murmurs become blank stares, the teeth tucked in the setting moon, the sphere, unwound from its cudgeled frame. 

Keeping past ignorance held suspended in time, a mockery as pale as the moon that set, in the mouth that murmurs its own foolishness.

Out of the din of a sacred silence like footsteps in the dark with no way to know who is coming, darts a raspy voice flying from behind the table.That’s all for today, in clear, direct, punctual speech.

Expecting nothing but more deception, and seeing that my world is in question; I stand erect. Weary and feeble, as if my bones had not felt my own weight. Up from repose, neck tight, eyes low, as I rise, I turn my head to see a glimmer of a smile.

This way, this way, in a stern harmonic tone, stood a gallant man, with ivory eyes that showed the entirety of life in his gaze. Pointing as he whispers, up, up, time to get up, identical to you, I once sat in repose, chained to the chair, lost in my ignorance. Hand out, pointing, up, we must go up. Up, up out of the chair, out from the night.

Guided up and out of the chair, we headed toward a door, to a set of steps, a vector spiral to the surface above. Half-way in our ascent, we glanced at a platform that stood above a gulf below which appeared to stretch endless.

Between the gulf and a whitewashed wall, sat the chair where I sat. Rising from its depths like a hiccup of indigestion was the hiss of a small creature whom sat on a table; projecting light onto the whitewashed wall.

We pause to glean the creature standing erect on a table. Its tiny paws gesticulated before an incandescent bulb, casting shapes onto the wall. These shapes appeared across from where I had sat, when I was in the gulf. It casts a marionette of shadow, its movements a mimicry of the truths I once thought true.

It would hiss, sounds similar to the raspy voice, and make ticking sounds like the murmuring of the clock, and make shapes like the crescent moon with its tiny paws to simulate teeth with its fingers.

In a dramatic pause, like Orpheus ascending from Hades, commanded not to look back, the air trembled with the weight of unseen eyes, as though the shadows themselves yearned for a backward glance. I gazed forward at the gallant man direct in front, whose steps glowed with an iridescent hue. Each step reverberating, with a pulse of unknown knowledge.

I huffed, a silent question, is what I saw in the chair what was dancing across the wall? Did my ears hear the sounds I thought were a voice? From the lyre on his lips, a tune sweet as sleep, humming, "Uh, huh”, “uh, huh”.

We crept up the steps, each progressive leap leading to a pale light, growing less pale. We halt at a door with a rim of violet shimmers, a knob with a dot of light bolting to the other side of the spiral. This is it, open it, he urged. I gasp a breath and turn the knob.

A cornucopia of colors beam into the damp, spiraling passage. The colors shimmer in my eyes with a resonance of truths unknown. I saw the shadowed truths for what they were—fragments of a story I once believed, now scattered like whispers in the light of colors containing all truth.

Carried by a warmth that holds my weary bones, I begin to hum, drowning out pale memories of the murmuring clock.

Transforming this chasm of ignorance that once held me hostage to the chair. No longer its murmuring fool, I saw the shadowed truths for what they were—echoes of a voice I no longer understood.

In gallant stride with ivory eyes, I turned to thank my companion, but the iridescent glow had become my own and his had faded. His purpose fulfilled, his song now sung through me, I stood and began my spiraling return.

Back down the spiral, past the platform, back to the door outside of the room, the clock ticked as it always had, yet its rhythm no longer held me. I smiled, knowing the chair would not. I look across and say, "This way."