Drawn across the surface of stone, fingertips catch at the subtle textures of the grain. Cold stone. Marble, perhaps. No eyes to guide the way, only questing fingers. Outward they move, and slowly they come to understand. These fingers are surrounded on four sides by walls of this stone. The floor, they find, is the same.

How long have these fingers searched? They do not know. It has taken some Time, across, and then back again. Becoming lost, when sleep overcomes them. It has been frustrating for these fingertips, for they were trained to be the tools, not the guide.

There is writing on the walls, this is known, but they cannot read it. The fingers curl into fists and beat the walls. Anger and frustration spill out from them like blood. They feel it pool on the floor in great gooey globs. Questing again, they search for these new things that invade their world. How long have they been alone with just themselves? They do not know. It seems like forever.

A thread of anger sticks to one finger as they brush by, and a shudder passes through the muscles. This is new. This is unknown. One hand comes down, and with deft fingers drags a mass of this tar away. Rolled between hands, the fingers find entertainment in something outside of themselves and the unforgiving walls.

Then the questing begins again, to find a seam, an opening anything to grab hold. To hope that perhaps these walls have an window or door. To plead that this is not an eternal prison.

And then revelation: These unreadable words form lines. Not straight as in books, but ones that twist in lines and zigzag haphazardly. Fingertips branch the design, map the ramblings of some mad ancient Celtic artist. A design that seems so familiar to these once-tools, so frustrated with being the guides. Why must they be the ones to see, and to do?

An eye opens and the fingers rejoice. They are no longer the guides. But now confusion reigns. There are no words, and no designs. The eye sees the walls of black, and the floor of red, but cannot feel the marble grain. The world of the fingers is not the world of the eye. And it is dark here. The eye has difficulty seeing in this murk.

Now the fingers do not move, and it is the eye's turn to quest. Drawn along the lines of ceiling and floor, it notices the tiny irregularities: There a mote of dust, here a crack. And up there: a window. Beyond the reach of the fingers.

The eye watches the window, and sees stars beyond. Great strands of light weave between them, and the eye watches them bend and twist like dragons of fire. But, this prison remains a prison, and the eye cannot remember how long it has been here, staring out the window. It yearns to see the other side of the walls. To know what might be there. Or is there anything at all there? Is there just the countless points of light, and the fire streamers in a universe occupied only by his prison?

But the ears have become impatient. They do not know of the eye's dilemma, nor would they care, and force themselves awake. The eyes, losing focus, become tools and silent. But the ears, in their haste, did not think of what they might hear. A room devoid of all, but eyes and hands, cannot be loud.

But it is loud.

Waves of crashing sound come hurtling against the ears, followed by numbing stillness. Forever do the ears remain awake, pummeled by the noise, unable to think or act. But then a sound, unlike the other, is heard amidst the stillness. Wailing. Crying. Sounds the ears recognize, and they cling to them. With them, they can return to sleep and let the eyes see once more.

And the eyes look for the source of the noise. But there is nothing new. The eyes know nothing of sound, and so the walls might be what make the noise or perhaps the hands. It cannot know. Perhaps the dragon swirls of fire, beyond the window, howl their frustrations?

But the eyes do notice something new. The window: It is lower. Still outside the grasp of the hands, but it had moved. How had it moved? When had it moved? Had the ears done this?

And with this the eyes pushed the ears awake. The world opened once more to the abused ears, and the crashing waves assaulted them. They bled their pain onto the floor, a gift for the hands perhaps. The ears cried out against the pain. They wailed. Then they refused any more, and crawled into darkness and silence.

The hands became the guide. Unused till now, this eternity later, they itched with impatience. They fidgeted with each other.

Fingers stretched and touched the walls. They took Time caressing their world, relearning where they were. The grain of marble. The cool touch of the floor. The feeling of pain, puddled on the floor. They touched it to the lips.

And the lips felt for the first Time.

The heat of anger blushed across them, its scent tickling the nose. So accustomed to working together, they cannot sleep apart. And so they awaken together.

This prison place tastes damp, the smell of stone ? cold and unforgiving ? and the faint scent of anger and frustration. This world is so empty for the nose and lips. Through countless short eternities these two lovers grow bored. They complain, to the others, that the fingers and eyes have worlds to explore while they have nothing. The ears, though, envy them their empty world, and thus the two are silent.

In silence, the eyes once more become guide and open. Their first gaze is to the window, for it had changed previous. And it has again. Lower, now, the fingers may yet be able to reach it.

For the first Time, they act together. Hands reach for window with eyes to guide them. No longer blind, the fingers are swift and sure. The edge is theirs. Claimed and owned, they scrabble to pull the eyes up higher.

With each inch gained, the eyes see more from that tiny window.

They see downward. Toward a center far below. The dragonfire lines curving inward toward each other, merging and flitting further off into darkness. A thousand-thousand stars dance mingle in the spaces between.

But no. The eyes are wrong, they realize. These curls of flame travel not away, but towards the prison. Or perhaps the prison moves towards the center.

This revelation brings dizziness. The eyes' world spirals into vertigo, and they must look away from the nightmare of light and dark.

What is this place? Where were we before this place? Have we always been here?

Shady memories of a past, with light and colours, and textures the hands and eyes can only dimly recall. These things boil up from the vertigo that shatters the vision of the eyes.

The fingers pull the eyes back up again, to look out the window into the vortex of fire.

And the eyes look upward. There, far above, a center within a maelstrom of light. The dragonfire lines curving outward from each other, splitting and fading further into nothingness. A thousand-thousand stars dance and mingle in the vast emptiness between.

Confusion. They look downward, then upward. The eyes know they see the same thing, reflections of each other. And the feelings of movement, falling in two directions at once.

Vertigo. The eyes cannot understand the feelings, and sensations, they reach into darkness to surcease and fall closed.

Without sight to guide them, the hands lose their grip and fall. Sharp grain of marbled floor cuts their palms, leaving slick blood and pain.

The ears hear something new, in their sleep, and creep towards wakefulness to test the world. The crashing waves are gone. The deafening silence is gone.

Distantly, they hear whimpering. Animal, fearful, unintelligible. And somewhere, they hear murmuring. A new voice. Unlike the whimpering, the crying, and the wailing. Somewhere, out there, beyond the walls there is a second voice.

A murmuring voice that speaks, but so muffled the ears can only hear that a voice exists. The cadence of speech, these ears know, but no words can be heard. Frustration.

Moving closer to the walls, they listen hard. One wall, the voice is closer. They listen. Perhaps two voices they hear? A conversation. Back and forth, one sounds cheerful, the other sounds scared.

Who are these voices, and why do the ears hear them?

And now the eyes are awake once more. The ears cannot know when the eyes fell closed, and the fingers are silent. They are angry at their rude treatment.

Now it is Time for all three to be awake, for the fingers have not slept and refuse to do so.

The eyes are ecstatic. The ears hear voices from beyond the window. The window that is lower still. So low they can almost see out without the help of the hands.

But the hands help none-the-less, and the eyes look out into infinity.

The ears are confused. Beyond this space, this window as the eyes call it, it hears a pulsing sound. Rhythmic and booming, yet quiet. How can this be? The eyes see nothing that would do this, and nor do they see the voices. Are those motes of light speaking?

The ears are astounded. With the eye's question, the ears hear it. Each mote has a voice. No words, can the ears make out, but the voices are like music. The ears can hear them all, and know that each mote is unique.

The ears hear the youth of those below, and the age of those above.

The nose, silent so long, smells the passage of seasons. The kiss of summer alights upon the lips, as the chill of winter stings the nose.

All five are awake to this odd spectacle. Only the fingers have nothing to admire.

So the fingers reach out. Five to hold the eyes up, and five to grasp a dragontail.

Electric. The touch of fire is unlike anything within the prison. It travels through the five guides with a shock, and each sees.

Places other than the prison. Sights alien to the eyes, and incomprehensible to the others. Sounds that trigger half-memories in the ears, and tastes that make the lips rejoice.

What is this that the fingers have found? Have they found other prisons? Are there others within these prisons, others that these five might meet?

The fingers pull hard, lifting the eyes ever closer to the alien sites. The five rejoice as sensations grow strong, and wipe clean the memories of the prison. The ears hear the murmured voices argue. One disagrees with the other, but the voices know it is too late. This the ears hear.

The five stumble, and fall. But where the prison floor halted their fall before, there is nothing here to stop them.

Streamer after streamer burns through them, and the spaces between them. The agony of a thousand places and sensations burn the five. Ignited, they fall towards the center far below.

And as they grow closer, the eyes see a speck of blue and green in the distance. A speck that grows into a marble, and then larger. Mottled, with wisps of white fluff that circle around in layers. It is here that the dragonfire is born, and it is hear that the five descend to.

A final glance upwards, the eyes take, to see the cube of the prison unfolding and growing. It forms no barrier to the ascending streamers, but the eyes somehow know that they can never pass it. The prison grows, and changes. The five have not truly left, merely changed the nature of their prison.

Below, the watery orb grows every larger, and with one final exultation the five alight upon its atmosphere in fiery incandescence. Then, in one moment of joy, they are no longer five, but one. Once more. Whole.

Posted by Martin at June 30, 2003 11:34 PM