Black and white
I stumbled from bed into the darkness outside, confused by the heat of the night air. It was more than darkness; I couldn't see anything around me, but I wasn't really blind. Strangely, the clay tiles of the porch were warm under my feet, and then I felt sunlight on my skin. Tilting my head and looking up into the darkness, I began to see the outline of the sun's flickering corona, thin white lines, a tracing, an illustration, white scratches on a black board. As my eyes adjusted, the world came into focus, but everything looked the same, like some monstrous etching. My surroundings were two-dimensional, like some kind of animation.
As I continued to focus, greater and greater detail appeared. The railing, my plants, leaves, blades of grass, everything remained black, but surrounded by an infinitely thin stark white nimbus. Soon the definition of individual objects was failing, and my field of sight degenerated into meaningless scratches and chaotic motion.
[September, 2002]
