Tiny Flecks of Glittering Light

I wake up in the morning. I’m a little groggy. Maybe it’s because I went out last night, enjoyed myself a bit too hard. Or maybe it’s this alarm. It’s six in the morning on my day off. I don’t want to be awake. Much less be awakened by the somewhat robotic voice over the fire alarm. “Beep. Beep. A fire has been reported in the building. This does not impact your floor. Still, please stay in your area to await further instructions.” Such a lovely alarm to wake up to. And it repeats. The beeping echoes in my head less than pleasantly. I blame last night. Or maybe I missed something. After all, I did wake up on the floor, when I went to sleep on the bed. Stumbling around my apartment, I make my way out to my windows. Looking out at the building next door, I try to use the windows to figure out what’s going on. The light seems to sparkle on the air, shining brightly when it bounces off of every little thing. Another aftereffect of something, I’m sure. Not as common as the ringing for me, as far as hangovers are concerned. Maybe when I left my bed in the night, I hit my head. That could explain the lights glittering through the air. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I can’t see any fire. The windows across the street aren’t reflective enough. Or maybe I’m just on the wrong side of the building.

I pull on some clothes that I have out. The pants are dirty, I think. Not sure. But, it’s six in the morning and after an emergency alarm. I doubt anyone will care about that. Opening my door, I stick my head out. The light from the fire alarm above blinks brightly, then vanishes. It does nothing to help my headache. “Anyone got a clue what’s going on, Mary?” I ask the only one of my two neighbors who also has their head sticking out of their door.

“Not really, Ben. My son says there was a fire in the bottom of that office building across the back alley, but I don’t think I believe him. I mean, we can’t see it from these apartments.” Mary replies. She’s a good person, but a tad too confident in some things.

I sigh. “You really should. That kid sneaks out all the time.” Then, after a pause, I add quickly, “But you didn’t hear that from me, aight?”

Mary sighs. “I didn’t hear what from you?” she jokes, then more seriously she says, “Okay, I’ll spread the word around the corner.”

“Want me to stay out here? I can, but I’d really prefer somewhere with fewer blinking bright lights in my current state of mind.”

Mary laughs. “Head on back inside your place,” she replies.

I give her a smile and a nod goodbye, then duck my head back inside my door. Alright, that office building Mary’s kid was talking about is only like four floors. That means, as bad as it could be, it only would’ve spread to the fifth floor of this building. That gives me four floors of leeway at a minimum. Now that I know where it’s coming from, I look out my windows once more. I have to sort of press myself up to the window and stand on a chair, but I can see a firetruck is already here. So, this problem should go away before long. Which just leaves my current problem.

I make myself some tea, and some eggs. My head continues to ring, and as I cook and the stovetop glows, the glow seems to spit lights across the air around the pan, too. Something is off in my head. Clearly. I finish making my eggs and eat them. They’re fine, though clearly made hastily more than well. The tea is better, but still not great. And, more to the point, neither particularly helps with the strange lights. The ringing in my head is still there, but time and tea seems to have lessened it, at least. So, improvement.

The alarm finally stops. Okay, that means I can try to get some rest. I mean, I could probably go to one of the urgent care centers around to get my head checked out. It would be the safe thing to do. But my health insurance is kinda shit. And besides, it’s probably just some aftereffect of falling out of bed. Concussion stuff. ANd the best way to deal with concussion stuff is just rest. I can do that here at home for free, rather than go into the care center and pay someone to tell me to rest here at home.

Making myself another pot of tea, I head to my shower for a quick rinse. Get the booze out of my pores and what not. I keep the lights of the bathroom off. It’s easier that way. I know my bathroom, and I don’t want to deal with the glittery lights flitting about. The hot water runs across my skin, opening up my pores. After washing myself quickly, I switch it over to cold water. Slowly, of course, so I don’t shock my system. The cold water washes across my skin, closing my open pores so nothing new can get in. I turn off the water. Wrapping my towel around me, I head out. I shiver a bit. The air feels cold. Also, upon leaving the bathroom, I’m reminded of why I left the lights off. The sunlight streaming into my apartment from the windows is causing the air to shimmer all around. I make my way carefully to the pot of brewing tea. Pouring it to fill a large thermos, I take the thermos and head back to my bedroom.

Lying down on my bed, I sip some more tea and try to relax. Being woken up suddenly makes that a little hard, but being exhausted helps some. A few beams of light reflect in through the door, causing a few faint glittering specks in the air. When it’s not overwhelming, the glittering spots are almost beautiful. I watch them shine as I slowly drift off to sleep.

Watching the lights, my mind begins to drift towards dreaming. In my mind, I see the comfort of the concrete jungle. Literally. My mind comes up with odd imagery at times. And as I picture it, I feel more relaxed. And as I relax, it comes into sharper focus. The shining spots remain and twist before me. I watch them half awake. Half asleep, I think about that forest with dirt of asphalt and trees of glass, brick, and concrete. Then, slowly, my half waking mind and my half sleeping mind start to see the same thing. Which isn’t right. Because my dream is a thing that isn’t real. And yet, my waking eyes tell me it is there, in front of me. That wakes me up. And, indeed, before my eyes appears to be a picture of that forest I dreamt, floating in the air where once there were only flecks of light.

Surprised, I stop thinking about the jungle. Something strange is going on. As I stop thinking about the jungle, it goes away. Replaced once more with the glittering lights. How interesting, I think. Taking another sip of tea, I no longer feel the need to rest. This requires further investigation. I close my eyes, and try to picture a thing. Anything really. My mind decides on a cabin in a snowy forest. Clearly I’ve been watching too much Bob Ross. But I see it there, in my mind. I picture it in detail. Keeping focused on that picture, I open my eyes. Before me, I see my apartment. Nothing’s changed about it.

So if it’s not just about having the picture in mind, maybe it’s about the light? I take another sip of tea. This time, I focus on the sparkling lights. They sparkle brilliantly. Remind me of that cruise I took a couple years ago, the ocean. As I watch the lights I think about the ocean. The rolling waves, the wake of the cruise ship. And as I picture it, the lights begin to twist and turn. As though adjusting themselves. And before me is the ocean. Well, a facsimile of it. The water, while it has waves in it, remains unmoving. This tells me two things. One, I’m clearly doing this somehow, and two, I’m not sure how. I mean, my thoughts had movement in the ocean, but the image didn’t. So it’s not automatic.

I wonder. I can make pictures in the air. What about things? I head out to the main room of my apartment to try it out. There are a lot more of those shining areas out here where there are windows. Looking at an empty, shining area in the middle of the room, I picture a fancy chair. If I want it to look right as an object, I’ll need it right from all angles. Pictures looked the same as I moved. This can’t be that. I spin the fancy around in my head, trying to see every little aspect. And, as I spin it, the light before me begins to twist once more. Sure enough, there is an image of the chair there. Now comes the real test. I walk around the room, keeping focused on the chair that isn’t actually there. And, sure enough, the chair changes as my view does. As though it were really there. As I go to touch it, my hand passes right through it. So it’s like a kind of hologram. Or I’m going crazy. Only one way to be sure. Or, two ways, but I don’t want to let anyone else know about this, in case I am just going crazy.

I grab my phone to take a picture. Losing focus on the light, the chair goes away. So, I need to be focused on the image and the light for it to stay. Glad I can figure out the rules. Looking at the spot again, I decide to go for something simple this time. I look at the light and picture a small, plain table. Doing that same spinning trick, which is much easier with something less intricate, I make the table appear. To me, at least. I take a picture with my phone. It looks like it’s there. Looking away and forgetting the table, it vanishes from the room. When I look at the picture on my phone, though, there it still sits. So it probably isn’t me going insane. Or my insanity is very complicated.

If they’re real-ish, I should be able to make them move. I think about what it was like for the pictures to appear. It’s like the light itself was twisting around. I picture something simple, something that is meant to move. A stick figure. I don’t bother with spinning it. I can try to combine these things later. I picture the stick figure in my mind as I gaze into the light. And a picture of a stick figure floats in the light. First I try thinking. That image of a stick figure in my mind moves its hand. But the image doesn’t move. Perhaps I have to move the image myself. Focusing on the light before me, I push the line of the stick figure’s arm up. It takes a lot of effort, but the arm moves. Eventually. It’s hard, though, to think about moving a thing without touching it. There’s got to be an easier way. What if I made it an action, rather than merely a thought. Keeping my focus on the figure in the light, I mime pinching the stick figure’s leg, and twisting it around. This time it moves with ease. Moving my wrist back and forth, pinching and unpinching my fingers, I make the little stick figure do a stationary run. I start using both hands, like I’m doing some strange crab-based dance. The stick figure is running in place with good form, pumping its arms as it moves its legs. And I smile. I’m enjoying myself, I must admit. If I can get a hang of whatever this is, it could definitely be a lot of fun.