Museum “The Statuette”

Last night I had a vision, and today I played it though.

I went to a museum, tucked away along a stretch of road you and I both know by heat...heart. I went there knowing that I was looking for someone, but I couldn't remember who. I found the door unlocked, the stains of blood on the floor and the desks unattended. And as I lingered upon the space, I noted the sound of electric light. Of humming, chanting things. On the sufac3e of the sun.

the...sounds...

The smells of the palace...place. Lingering in my brain, pulsing with every breath in and out. It is the smell of mold and of old tombs, of rotting, coppery things...and once more that I tried to block out, only to have it rise up, lift above the natural smells of the spaces. Yet still I pressed on, pushing that aside, trying over and over to find my way through all of this...

Foggy...so foggy...

Too little sleep...

I found an office for one that manages the collection...they were not there. Grief rose up in me at that revelation, the empty office holding more weight, more tears than any other part of the structure. I toured the halls and exhibits, my mind lingering on some I knew and others I did not know yet. I looked about for places unclean, and for answers unearthed.

Found a desk. Messy desk.

paranoia. blame.

Found a letter there. One unsent. Couldn't read it. Tried to read it. Many times. Every time I would read it it would be something else, every reading shifting and moving as truths and terrible lies lingered, were destroyed, grieved, and then were lost along with all the rest. And in all of it was a thing...a through line that was repeated again and again, first one way and then another.

A truth.

It was a blame misplaced, a weight unfairly settled on the shoulders of one who suffered enough. It spoke about entropy and the pieces that made it what it was...is. But in those observations and the calculated, cruel machinations that brought low the one I sought, there was something else.

A revealing of the lie.

Three suns. Seven daughters. But it was not the fault of the daughters. The daughters were not daughters. They were not children. They are...were something else. And the end, as one is so apt to call it, was never dependent on them.

The heat...the death of heat...

Was always going to come.

Wandering...more wandering. Places...avoiding. I was avoiding something. What was I avoiding? How could I avoid it in a place I did not know? How could I find refuge in spaces without light...fear of the dark...always scared of the dark. Try not to be but can't help it. Childlike things, but not. Fear of the dark. No. Fear of a lack of light. Not the things within.

Not enough light.

There was an exhibit that was so clear. The letter was the same no matter how many times I read it. The worlds...words pressed against my eyes...imprinted like something walking across them... sunlight upon my closed lids as I drive to a place I do not know. Safe and secure.

Till I open them.

And now I cannot close them at all.

Because I saw the statuette. I saw the form that lay within.

And now my eyes are open.

Visions caught in it. Refusing...struggling. Pulling away. Please let me look away...the light...

It looked like an entity, nondescript and without forms. Human...looked human...an impression of one, without sex or details...but still far from what It is at Its core.

I could not see inside at first.

The shell still remained.

And then the overhead lights...sunspots lingering in the sounds...flickered once and then died, casting the space into the form of night. And I felt terror rising upon my skin, hairs standing taut against my flesh as a light began to build.

But not a light.

Not at first.

First was the heat.

I cannot feel the cold...The heat though.

It was growing.

I tried to retreat, to run away. But It would not let me. I have no control. I cannot look away. I never was going to look away. But I tried. So very hard. And it hurt. My skin...no...my skin...not my skin. Always my skin. Never my skin.

It was getting hotter and hotter, as the wax that covered what was within melted away, like a candle lit with a blowtorch. And once that was revealed I at last saw the statuette as it is...was...always will be. A sun unbound for so long.

But no longer...

I ran. Finally I ran.

Got in the car. Drove...drove...didn't look back. Knew what I would see. But then I was given no choice. The rear view mirror. Tried to darken. Not enough. Tore it off. I was screaming. Maddening wails of reputed lives lost and born and falling apart...falling apart. My eyes. My eyelids. Falling apart.

Tore it off...light only behind me.

Not behind me. Next to me. Sitting next to me. A form...a glow.

A Glowing.

A heat. Hair burned off. Skin tender to the touch and broken in many places. It was there, in the car. Passenger seat is gone, burnt plastic smell lingering in the space...smell of batteries...melted glass running down the door...

It spoke...

“Tomorrow never comes at all.”

And then I woke up.

And I cannot sleep...

I...

Niomi. I can't hate myself anymore. I lied.

But you forgive me. That much I know. Just as I know that before today, this visit went very different. But time is only a thing that matters to those who are alive. And we are unbound...but bound to the fate of things.

I will see you...

Too late...I know...

I love you...

I will find you

within the rows.

Yesterday I had a nightmare.

A vision...

And today I played it through.