The Kaleidoscope

A man peeks out of a hole in the mountain. The snow rains like ash salting from some forlorn fire hidden behind the cloud-soaked sky. It's nowhere to be seen. He tries his cold, blistered foot in the crinkly blanket snow and immediately recoils. I have to leave, he tells himself. If I don't leave, I will die. He steps again into the snow. Then he steps again, and on he trudges for twenty more steps. The wind cuts into his eardrums sans mercy. He peers back to the cave. I could still go back. No, I can't.

But what if I get lost? No. I'll follow my footprints home.

So he stamped his feet into the vast bleak empty. The trees all appear the same and seem like strong, thin columns holding the sky a god's breath over the frozen wasteland. Like two magnet mirrors, the ground and sky tugged on the snow from both ends, and what remained was the illusion of frozen rope stilled over the tundra, like marionette strings tugged in a dark ballet. Still, on he trudged, stumbling through the haunting corridors of the colorblind kaleidoscope. Spinning, spinning, spinning, and the dark night colluding with the dark light.

But there were still the footprints, and he had faith in the past. Never lost, truly, he would cock his neck round, and there were his steps, still stamped deep in the lifeless ground. Like old friends, he'd dance back to them, and they'd remind him of where he was and from where he'd come.

And night. Night never falls. It slowly permeates and overwhelms the day until there's nothing left, nothing but the ever-distant lights of a thousand suns. And so he traveled by black sunlight, and they each a one shed a single tear to guide him home.

But he stepped forward instead, and he stepped forward because it hurt. It hurts to be alive, and that's how we know.

He walked until his fingers grew faint and numb. Icicles teetered from his nose, from his ears, from his heart, and from his skin . The quiet sounds kept his ears, and the timid tinge of timber tilted his nose twitch ever so slightly. Some time later, his mind began to freeze. With each passing step he felt the jilting pang of memories slowly crystallizing until, one by precious one, they shed from his body, forever lost in white dusty oblivion. But the man walked, and he never stopped.

Old thoughts soaked like charcoal in the thick leaves. Melodies sang in harmonious verse, peddling backwards over the mind and the earth. So the leaves grew moist in the sanctuary of thought and saturated in the dying memories of a distant life. They would decay.

Years shrunk into weeks; weeks shriveled into days. And so time traveled, equally sliding up and down the hourglass, destined to meet in the holy middle. Two beads flying to a converging point. Two hollow stones reckless in fated course. And soon lives became mystery; names became myth. The trees ended in wake of color and green. Green, he said. Under my feet. The soft, cushioned, needles pricks were anesthetic under his skin. Numb, and nothing. Beams of light shattered, broke through crystal heaven and warmed his head. His lips smiled, and everything emptied. It was beautiful.

He looked round for footprints. There were none.