A Dream of Form in Days of Thought

The thousand lights of night gave way to a path. She followed the path marked by the breath of ocean tide, her shape illumined by the ice of pebbles that played beneath. To what she was going, she did not know. She walked the path and she was speed. Leaves crowned the small of her head as she swayed with the branches of the invisible tree that held her stance. The leaves breathed so and she was lung; the pathway of the tide. Gliding, illumined by the faraway worlds that hovered above, she tripped on the broken branches of the tree and fell face down on the frigid pebble floor. Now the cosmos was inside her and she could reach it with the lightest touch.

A kindled track unfolded her way into the world of worlds. She glided along and reached the world of fire; the essence was corruption and rotting degradation.

Unblinking, the path took her to the world of air. It was a masked cloud of soot that stung her lung of steel. The cloud took over her mind but she turned, she saw what was pure and moved on.

The world of water awaited. She swam in pools of stardust and plunged in waves of joy. She paddled through eternal springs and played with celestial life that dwelled within.

Finally, the path took her to the world of earth. Therein were fire, air and water tenants. She reached in a daze, head tilted, with the lightest hand…

The darkest of mists descended then and swallowed the light of night. The kindled path dissolved and she fell from the inner cosmos; she slipped away, far into the abyss.

Outside, the wind whistled a tune of old. Her eyes opened, glistening, scanning the pebble floor. Rising slowly, she resumed as before, her steady foot no longer met disjointed branch.

No day or night was there; no drought or flood. Time was the stardust in her hair and life was the tidal breath that journeyed through her lung.

She was bulletproof. She was a child, and the cosmos was her.

Bisera Djundeva