Casey Gilfillan

I look outside through the window by my bedside, tying up the curtain to welcome in the sun. I scour the expanse and realize there is no sun, at least not to be detected by the naked eye. It must be hiding, yes certainly so, behind the swallowing opaqueness of the white sky. A dreary and muted white like that of illness, as to inspire cognitive paralysis. There is no sun to warm the shadowed walls of my bedroom, but there is a light that casts itself deeply within. It holds a staggering sort of brilliance, the sparkle and awe of its phenomenon. I grasp the frame of the window, the light serves a cleansing castigation upon my soul.

It floods and corrupts, overwhelms with presence that denies the routine, the expected. Like an ambitious assault, they all go together in a regimented flow; the unstructured free fall looks beautifully planned. As though each speck was placed equidistantly from its neighbor, and then sent down in a sheer wave of continuity. I am drawn to the shimmering glow, the gleaning appeal of the unpierced cushion. I reach out and it bites me quickly, succinct and proven with its teeth. How could I have been so naïve as to approach the thing that approaches and takes its own leave. It had called on me, it continues to…

And then I pass a little enclave, built only a few inches further into the earth but enough that one needs to step down into it. I enter the space, fenced by the thickened inkberry hollies, which harbors a gallery of the untouched. The tables, chairs, and bench all still wore the slight and natural slope of snow that has fallen and not yet been disturbed, blown away by the wind or swatted with a scraper. Even the hollies still donned their pearly top hats. I suddenly felt as though my presence might yet awaken something terrible, might shake the serene preservation into tumult.