Face of Mine

There she was again, with that emotionless face of hers.

I know I'm asleep, I know I'm safe in my bed back in my room, surrounded by faces on posters, an old record on repeat and the lights turned down low. I know my mother is in the next room, softly snoring away the night. I know my street is quiet, the neighborhood kids having gone to sleep hours before. I know this.

But there she was again, with that emotionless face of hers.

Again? I wonder out loud, and she doesn't respond.  I watch her trace her message in the thick, sultry air of that place where I was meeting her, that ever-changing unreality that lay at the back of my mind. I sit myself down on a white rock in the middle of the plain of dark sand, watching her walk around me, wearing that pink hoodie I always wore. Her message was clear as day.

Be wary, a storm is brewing.

There she was again, with that emotionless face of hers.

She was from a month from now, and I knew I had to heed her message. I know I would wake up and carry on with my life. I know I would be careful about everything I was doing, keeping her words in my mind. All in all, what I didn't know was that a friend of mine was going to betray me, but you can say I was forewarned in part. The last time I saw her, she told me "Whatever you're worrying about now will no longer be a concern", and true to her word, things worked out well.  But that still didn't make this phenomenon any easier to accept. It made me question what I really knew anyway. 

There she was again, with that emotionless face of hers.

But how does she know in the first place? She wears my hoodie, she appears whenever she wants to and I am powerless to talk to her, powerless to know what she's thinking. When I close my eyes and enter that world of my subconscious, I find in there a person I never thought I'd meet. A person who's only concern is me, who's only drive is me. In there I find the tutor of my future, someone who has seen more truth than I have just yet. I know this.

I wake up from my long night and plan ahead, recalibrate my emotions and desires to be wary for what the future might bring. I would see her again anyway. Going through the motions, I am ready to leave and get my day started, so I stand in front of my dressing table, a double check on my slight makeup and my clothes. I loved the feel of my pink hoodie, but even through its thickness, I shudder as a chill runs up my spine.

There she was again, with that emotionless face of mine.

Blink

Just as he closed his eyes, the lights started flashing. 

Blink, Blink, flash, strobe lights so strong he wanted to scream, but then he realised that it didn't hurt anymore. The dim, warm lighting of his room greeted his eyes when he opened them, 'the light of Gondor that was never heeded', he jokingly told himself. The call for help that was never heard let alone sounded. Rolling onto a side, he looked at the square-shaped device that told him how much sleep he was wasting by not facing to slumber. It was measured in hours at first, and then in minutes, and finally, in seconds when the sun kisses the horizon. 

Blink, blink, flash, they were back. A shady club where the music was so bad that you automatically put it on mute in your mind, being there not out of choice but out of obligation. This was the essence of how he felt with his overactive rods and cones, the nerves of his failing optics. What was darkness if darkness gave you no solace? Shaken to the core when it first happened to him, but now accepting it with a quiet resignation, he stared at the ceiling again. Oh sweet, paint-peeled roof over my head, how I will miss you, he thought sombrely. Braille came easy to him, but what was hardest was letting go. A shiver down his spine came well timed, his silent prayers for forgiveness now muted and unspoken as he lay in silent resignation. 

Blink, blink. 

He waited for the flash. It was coming, he knew. He waited long and hard for the flash that accompanied the blinks for the past two months, a doom of minimal proportions with galactic consequences. The darkness waited with him, expectantly, giving him a ledge to stand on while he waited at the abyss. The abyss watched him with a sense of deep, everlasting patience as he waited. 

He moved his hands trying to reach the small button that would summon the only answer to his prayers of mercy; a kindly old nurse whom he would never see again. The button hailed her, and his ears tried to put an image to a black canvas of blindness to no avail. There was only one acquaintance now, someone he spent half his life with, an entity that welcomed him with open arms to a world mired below the one he was just in. 

Hello, darkness my old friend. 


Blink.