When the Rays are High
*If you haven’t yet, please check out this post from last week where I discuss my inspiration for writing the story below.
I’m sitting at my desk, staring at a blank Word document: “Document13.” The digits on the clock in the bottom-right corner of the screen read “1:08 AM,” the date “January 10th” - but it doesn’t feel right. It must be earlier. I must be younger. This can’t be right, I repeat in my head, the volume increasing with each iteration. I rend the power of the incantation by looking through the window into the backyard. Trees, fence, grass - all rendered grotesque in the dark, unfamiliar without color or shadow, surreal and malevolent. The warbling of nightingales sounds tinny in my sleep-deprived weariness, the space between lacking that something which normally protects me from such sensory assaults.
My eyes return to the Word document. The insertion point bar is blinking, entering and exiting existence, disappearing into a realm I cannot reach, only to reappear once more. Forever. Is it? I realize I am staring, so I blink rapidly, then randomly, asserting my isness. The bar replies, as ever: blink, blink, blink…
Which fate is worse, to die or to live forever? I enter through a portal into the state of unease, where there is no resolution nor answer, only the chilly fingers which climb from stomach into chest to encircle heart. They do not cease their hostile journey through me, ending by caressing the nape of my neck, a malevolent power revealing itself around me. Like an animal grabbed by its scruff, I cannot move. I close my eyes. Breathe. Slowly.
The fear remains. I must do something. Open your eyes, I tell myself. They are open. The world is as it was before. This is no dream. In a dream there is the certainty of timelessness, knowledge of past-present-future all at once, reconciliation with a self which has always existed. But here, now, only icy fingers unbidden - and the passage of time.
To think about death is to think about nothing, as whatever the negation of everything is. Unfathomable. Only a poor approximation in feeling, even more impoverished in speech. How can I describe it? We all die alone. How can nothing be yours or mine? I find myself unafraid of death because I cannot begin to imagine it, for it is beyond. But the uncertainty…the uncertainty enervates, leaves cold, siphons life from life. That’s what will do me in, in the end. The uncertainty, the horrible uncertainty…
A song. I must have a song. Something to bypass these dead-end thoughts, something to signal to whatever lies underneath me, all of the automatic processes which constitute me, the parts which cannot be reached by me, reaching out the only way they can with shadows on the wall of my mind, adumbrations, only adumbrations...
I reach over to pick up my headphones, carefully placing them one at a time in each ear. Steady. Breathe. I must have a song. I scroll through the library, the most important task, now, the most important thing I will ever do, in this moment, now, here, make it real, make it stop, I must have a song, now. I stop. This one, yes, this one. A compendium of memories flash synchronically: other moments, the people I’ve thought about, the feelings. I can’t breathe. I must breathe. Tears spring forth, the levies worn and ill-maintained. Haven’t they traced these tracks before? And who can blame them? It’s just their nature…
“Steel on the skyline
Sky made of glass”
A cold morning, the sea and sky in their muted grayness, a soundscape of waves, the taste of brine, fine droplets of spray which never dry. The sky is illuminated by a light it cannot let through. The shapes of human life rise feebly in a motionless fog. I am not meant to see.
“Made for a real world
All things must pass”
The humanity slowly cycles through its ages, rising, falling. Then it disappears. But the fog remains, heavy and impenetrable. And the waves roll on. They obey another mandate.
“Waiting for something
Looking for someone”
I want to know, I need to know, if only I could know. Strike me down, God, but please let me know. Where are you? I am here. I wait for you, if only you would give me a sign, anything, please, I beg you to show me, anything. I need to know, I must know, I have to know…
“Is there no reason?
Have I stared too long?”
The jaws of the earth open, unconcealing the darkness within. The emptiness has bored through me. I am wide open, my skin is gone, I am completely exposed, every sensation brutalizes. Raw. Nothing makes sense. Why? What did I do? How could I have known? I wasn’t ready, we weren’t ready, we knew not what we did, we fell away, we will never be ready to live without you. Yet here we are, at the edge, looking down, there is no end, it cannot be, there must be a mistake, I don’t deserve this…
“You say you'll leave me”
Something in the corner of my eye, fleeting. I had it, I never had it, I know I’ve lost it, I don’t know what it is. But it was there, it was mine. It belonged to me. I didn’t know. I left you first, you left me first. I don’t know where to begin. Now there’s only a trace, a residue, the impression of you burned into my soul - but it’s not the same. It will never be the same. I pushed you away. I didn’t know. I can’t find you, help me, help me, help me please…
“And when the sun is low
And the rays high
I can see it now
I can feel it die”
Now the day has almost ended. Will we remember there was once a sun? We have the rays, we’ll always have the rays, won’t we?
…And if we lose the rays? What then? I cannot bear it. I must be able to see. Please don’t go. I didn’t understand but now I do, please, if I could only have one more day, I promise I’ll make it right, I’ll understand, I’ll do anything…
“Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh”
Let me have the rays, only the rays, all I need are the rays, just a little more time, please, just the rays…
Inspiration and song lyrics from David Bowie’s “Heathen (The Rays)” from his 2002 album “Heathen”
How powerful and beautiful!