Wisp

by rockyrobben

The Bird and the Flower

Was this existence?

It remembered an eternity struggling for this. It remembered floating on the timeless currents of the void, endlessly searching for something other than the gut wrenching darkness. Did it know anything other than the search? Was this merely another delusion on the journey to insanity?

No.

It had existed before. It was certain it had. But the memories were like wisps of magical energy: impossible to grasp. Its mind wandered as if it had just woken from hibernation.

It snuggled into the darkness that was infinitely brighter than it remembered. Should existence be more than the blackness? It pondered the thought and cast a glance at the fractured memories it found. A picture of intense glory fluttered through its mind.

It stuttered to a halt, the quandary of its cocoon forgotten, as it failed to comprehend the sheer beauty of the brief image. The vision was so familiar, as if its beauty was once common-place. It tried to place a name on the spectacle. It was something...not black. Its brain numbed from sheer elation as it clutched onto the memory with everything it had.

It was so beautiful. It wanted to hold it within its mind forever.

Giddy euphoria overwhelmed its consciousness. Its mind! I'm Thinking! These are my thoughts! That meant it was actually free! It whooped as absent thoughts gathered like energy, and turned into ideas.

But what next? Its mind snatched something from the aether. It was certain there was more to this than the darkness. It recalled the memory that filled it with so much joy. It was... what was it? It growled in the darkness. It knew, but the answer seemed just out of reach.

The Consciousness realised there was something next to it, bobbing and swirling around it. The thing buzzed with a vibrant energy as it sped past and joined with another spectral entity. They danced in a chaotic, freeform motion, mimicking the void currents the Consciousness remembered all too well.

It gently stroked these dancing entities, wishing to join them on their flight. It could feel the wisps, as ethereal in form as the Consciousness itself. It gathered them up, elated that they happily moved to its will. A haze lifted slightly from its mind as the wisps sparked, giving it a valuable burst of energy. Those things were like a spot of light in empty space: a welcome change.

Light! That was what it lacked. Something within hungered for something more than the memory; And for that, it needed to see. It realised that somehow, the wisps fuelled it. So, it gathered as many of those energy clouds that it could reach and hugged it. A wave of elation washed through the being as it became larger and larger, pulling the wisps so close together that they glowed. Energy surged through it and coalesced into its mind, causing thoughts to spark and multiply as if it were a maelstrom. Its consciousness expanded further and further until every wisp that made its form obeyed its will.

Let me see.

It hovered in place as if struck by the sheer magnificence of light. Colours, from the stunning reds to the calming greens, assaulted it from every direction. It failed to compose a thought as it happily watched the dreary smears focus into pure, clear cut lines. Scents, foreign yet distinctly familiar, comforted it as its attention was drawn to the sweet song of something.

In front of it, a small green creature with beady black eyes hopped on its perch -- a huge gnarled structure of green and brown. It sang its song through a small triangular protuberance on its face, flapping some of its body with ecstatic fervour. What was it doing? Why would such a small thing flap so fast? Suddenly, it lifted off the ground and hovered in the air as if it were saying, 'I can do what you can.'

The Spirit, it decided to call itself, shifted its body, imitating that of the creature that its mind labelled as a 'bird'. But, its new form did not match. It dwarfed the bird in size and it could only alter the violet aura of the wisps to electric blue.

The bird flew off surprisingly quickly for something so small. The Spirit gave chase, eager to remain in its company, but it wondered why it had to fly around the structures of green and brown --trees it came to realise. Why not just fly through them? It watched the bird dart here and there as it lazily followed, phasing through any obstacles in its way.

Maybe it can't? The bird stopped at a tubular stem that bowed with the weight of the small leaf-like bits made from a brilliant red, which stood out against the familiar greens and browns.

The bird put its beak in the heart of the...flower, and the flower moved with it.

It was amazing. This was true contact: an exchange of energy from one physical object to another that was, by all means, independent from it. But, its elation sunk under a rising sense of dread that it could not ignore. As if it already knew the answer, it floated over to the flower and hesitantly told its form to push on the flower.

The wisps passed right through.

I-I can't touch anything. It felt wrong. Why is the bird allowed such a wonderful experience, but I can't? It was as if it were a mere observer of the world it should have woken up in.

It knew then that it was stuck. This... realm --for it was not a real world-- was infinitely connected to the world it could see, but was still completely independent from it. It was like the bird and the flower; they interacted with each other but remained two separate things.

Was it chance or just a sheer cosmic joke that The Void threw it into this...in between realm to forever writhe knowing that it was just so close?

The Spirit's dejection lasted until a spark of a colour, almost forgotten, caught its attention through the deep green of the tree canopy. Brightness washed over it, purging all sour thoughts from its mind as it rippled through the sea of green without disturbing it.

The Spirit stared out into the infinite blue. The frantic writhing of its wisps seemed to cease as it contemplated the beauty that enveloped it. This was the memory; and it was perfect.

But, it was not the only thing in the sky. A great pillar of violet purple, just like itself, surged high into the atmosphere, spreading and dispersing at its tip like a giant tree. Thousands...no, millions of wisps surged within the column and shot out the top with such intensity that they were thrown beyond its vision. Some of it congregated and fell back down as drops of violet rain, but the rest dispersed within the air itself, making it hum with untapped energy.

It could feel the wisps in the air around it. It tried pulling more in, as it did earlier, but they escaped as soon as they joined. It could not grow any bigger.

It watched the wisps surge up the column to disappear into the air. Was this what I used to be? It sensed no life, no consciousness, in that flow. Did that mean it was the only one? Was it alone?

What am I?

The question dwarfed the others just as the column dwarfed it. But the Spirit was sentient. So surely that meant it was different, special in some way?

It did not like these thoughts, and so it focused its vision below it. The forest covered the ground like a blanket, but, in front of it, a series of boxes, all lines and angles instead of the natural curves, congregated loosely around a central point. It noted the pinks, reds, beige, and whites that contrasted severely with the world around them. Its keen sight caught movement in between those cubes. There was something happening there, and it wanted to see it.

It was enough for the flood of curiosity to drown every rational sense in its head.

Comments

[Shadowshame]

Interesting start