An excited air enters his lungs as he takes a sharp breath and suddenly rises from bed. Mysteriously awoken for an unknown reason without the fading memory of a dream. He examines the silver glow laying atop his wrinkled bedsheets as if a telescope gazing upon slumbering craters. He checks the time. 2:07am. He releases a frustrated sigh as he tosses aside his light duvet. Groggy and distant, he heads into the kitchen for a cold glass of water. Instinctively stopping to test the topsoil of his plant, his head rises and holds the stare of the brilliant moon, lit in its entirety. His eyes locked on the glorious imperfections of its cavernous body, studying the infinite beauty of this finite being. He recalls that its complex tendencies of disappearing and reappearing once minimized the moon to be a grand silver chariot. Seen by the ancient Greeks racing through the night with a titan upon its saddle. Often left unappreciated for the greater grandeur within the chariot of the sun, with its outshining glorious rays of light with which to feed and nurture the sullen earth. Now, the subtle moon lazily drifts through the sky, still unnoticed, allowing those beneath it to drift away into a gentle sleep from which the sun will in time awaken them. But tonight it is not the sun that has awoken him. As the statue of a man stands above his jade plant, the ivory luminescence lay gently across his body, masterfully sculpting the marble of his self, caressing his all too human mind.
The moon continues its nightly routine behind a selfish building, as if at an overcrowded art gallery. He is released from his humanizing slumber. As he sheds his impermanent silver skin, a layer of his own is taken with it. He stiffens his neck, mouth still slightly agape. His sensitive dark eyes bright with intrigue. He raises his hand with insatiable hunger, yet slow movement up to his face. He obeys every impulse of his primitive brain, cautiously moving each tendon, each muscle, each ligament as if a baby beginning to understand itself. He becomes suddenly detached from this careful creature on the end of his arm, examining its slow and unknown movements, considering every facet of its unlikely existence. He attempts to understand the deepest channel of his ocean-like mind.
Fighting the weight of consciousness, he opens his hand; a blooming flower, slowly and cautiously until its beautifully detached face is revealed. Struggling to hold it in place, but eager to examine the corrugated palm. Gazing past the obvious scar-like creases which would provide a palm reader with ample foretelling, he examines the deeper more intricate lines on his hand for any trace of himself. The deep, almost translucent etchings on his hand tell a story unknown to him, like faded paintings on the smooth wall of an ancient cave. He studies them as a philologist attempting to decipher an ancient language, slowly decoding the message hidden within. He then lets it fall back into its uncurled fist, now suitable only to handle the most gentle task of caressing his fragile plant. The natural coiling of his hand seems to reveal a constant state of readiness, but in this moment he feels the opposite. This newfound form of being encompasses him, holds him underneath its heavy thread of thought. He becomes progressively more disconnected from his body and mind, beginning an ascent into the unknown.
He begins to understand the mundanity of himself. He remembers the moon, its size appearing to him but a marble. He had always been told that the moon was colossal, but only now he began to comprehend it. He looked past the moonless sky into what had previously been a solid black colouring, imagining that if only he were much taller he could reach out and collect a sample of it. Now, this darkness did not represent a solid being. He could grow all that he desired, but he would never reach heights that he thought to be previously tangible. He begins to find less and less meaning where he had so carefully placed it as he begins to truly discover the changing world around him. He panics as he struggles to find comfort in that which he had found it before. As he is released from his immortal shelter, he is thrown violently into a terrifying and total freedom.
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