Lights Outside

Stay out of the light. Keep your distance as if this were a bear that had no form. Ursus, which means destroyer – the shapeless, indescribable doom peoples would not name and called only bruin, the brown, the beast left untraceable, its edges incomprehensible. It assassinates inside the captivating hugeness of its body. Its shadow was sorrow, and there are many shadows here. Perhaps they are sure lights. Maybe you want to call them that and let all of that pale, wavering immateria spill over your face. Maybe.

There are some who would want the lights to be brighter, but they stay were they are, their intensity unmoved, unafflicted by your glowing emotions. The light shining around you, circumscribing your body reflecting on the surfaces in the center of everyone around you. These two come up together, dueling, charged and seconded, your glow by the perceptions of your heart and the light by the grid. The light wins out. It sorry, weak light remains ceaseless, inexhaustible, so long as its filamental gases hold out. It awards its prize, casting a pallor on the bare skin of a coughing chest waiting to come to rest forever. Pinpointing for us where weakness has developed.

Who knows, maybe it’s a paling in the end. Maybe it keeps us aware of what’s going to happen when we look at the bed. Giving us a chance, a moment or two more to adjust our senses instead of coming in here with some kind of unknowing, or at the outside worst, false hope. Perhaps they are sure lights outside room 317, knowing that they are at least honest.


The gidget below is my Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Team in Training fundraising widget. I am competing in the NYC Triathlon this year to raise money for LLS research and patient services charity. Last year a friend, classmate, and fellow writer, Honest Jon Harding, passed away after a long battle with cancer.

For every 10% of my goal that I raise, I will post a new story here or someplace else on the internet. If you want more fiction, or if you want to donate to this wonderful cause, just click below. This weeks story riffed off of this image at Elephant Words.

Update The Fundraising widget doesn't seem to be working right now, so until then, here is a link to my donations page. Anything you can give goes to a great cause, and all donations are tax deductible.