Solitude Standing
by northern

She comes to visit when he's alone. Only then.

A broken light, like a television with nothing on, millions of small dots and sparks milling around at the edge of his vision, finally gathering into a shape. She's never there fully. Her prickly glowing figure is static, jerky.

Her words are unclear. They are understandable only by themselves, or sometimes in pairs, jumping out at him in sudden bursts. He never writes them down until she leaves.

He sees her smile, sometimes. A slightly darker line of static widening and curving to make something almost visible. If he smiles back, she touches him, and he closes his eyes to feel the not-there touch on his arm.

He's sucked into a slowly whirling hole of points of light and he thinks, this is what we are all made of. The sound of it is like wind, but not. It's on the inside of his ears.

Everything narrows down to the dark-light focal point in front of him. It's not fixed. The grey stone around it is flowing sluggishly, like dark lava. The center wafts gently in the stone breeze.

His body is stretched, elongated, until it spans the whole distance between the forever of his point of origin and the core that pulls at him. He's closer now, and the strange tension is a metal rope stretched through him that's being twisted and pulled. A humming that makes his body thrum and vibrate. It increases slowly until he's sure he'll snap in two and go rushing the immesurable distance back and forth.

There is a sudden warmth on his face, like strong sunlight, pulsing.

"Uhm... yes? What?" He can't remember what it was he heard.