Heavy
Regular readers of my LJ - I've written this as my first entry for the writing competition, brigits_flame.
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Heavy
Stippled paint on the ceiling. He tries to imagine gravity inverting, shrinking to the size of that spider (or that moth, wandering precariously close to its end), and walking in the creamy shadows of those waxen mountains, in those canyons between wave and ripple. He would feel the frictious squeaking beneath his feet, and if he reached down to touch, he would feel the surface powdery yet immovable. Looking up, he would see the monstrous golden lampshade, tethered by thick wire and floating impossibly.
clack-TICK(tick), tick(tick).
clack-TICK(tick), tick.
clack-TICK(tick), tick(tick).
Were he so small, he could approach the base of the lampshade, and stare up in awe at its nooks and ledges, its arches and projections and dimples, its whites and golds and ambers. Oh, to only touch the loops and whorls of its glass with tiny, weightless hands. To only feel on his skin the sublime hum and benign warmth from within.
clack-TICK(tick), tick(tick).
clack-TICK(tick), tick.
clack-TICK(tick), tick(tick).
Outside a bus passes, flared flash of red through the rain. Wet, morose footsteps under a pastel umbrella. Splash of sullen jazz. The clock on his wall shows times for London, Paris, New York, Moscow, Hong Kong and Sydney. The doleful ticks are out of sync, the clocks are out of time, and six white faces leer out at him.
clack-TICK(tick), tick(tick).
He wants to float up to the ceiling to be with the spider and the moth, to go outside and melt into the rain, to evanesce into the very air and light and go up, and up, and up. But oh, he's never felt so heavy.
© Jerrard Doran, 2008
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Heavy
Stippled paint on the ceiling. He tries to imagine gravity inverting, shrinking to the size of that spider (or that moth, wandering precariously close to its end), and walking in the creamy shadows of those waxen mountains, in those canyons between wave and ripple. He would feel the frictious squeaking beneath his feet, and if he reached down to touch, he would feel the surface powdery yet immovable. Looking up, he would see the monstrous golden lampshade, tethered by thick wire and floating impossibly.
clack-TICK(tick), tick(tick).
clack-TICK(tick), tick.
clack-TICK(tick), tick(tick).
Were he so small, he could approach the base of the lampshade, and stare up in awe at its nooks and ledges, its arches and projections and dimples, its whites and golds and ambers. Oh, to only touch the loops and whorls of its glass with tiny, weightless hands. To only feel on his skin the sublime hum and benign warmth from within.
clack-TICK(tick), tick(tick).
clack-TICK(tick), tick.
clack-TICK(tick), tick(tick).
Outside a bus passes, flared flash of red through the rain. Wet, morose footsteps under a pastel umbrella. Splash of sullen jazz. The clock on his wall shows times for London, Paris, New York, Moscow, Hong Kong and Sydney. The doleful ticks are out of sync, the clocks are out of time, and six white faces leer out at him.
clack-TICK(tick), tick(tick).
He wants to float up to the ceiling to be with the spider and the moth, to go outside and melt into the rain, to evanesce into the very air and light and go up, and up, and up. But oh, he's never felt so heavy.
© Jerrard Doran, 2008