Chromesthesia

Chromesthesia

A conscious being free from form perceived as scattered light is traveling through unknowns. Unwavering from its direction in the journey. In a panic, it skates the outer atmospheres of this blue bubble seeking liberation from its dire predicament. Searing the breath of life under the skin of opposing force in gravity & vacuum. Now Blanketed by dull aesthetics, & the fumes of organic & plastic harmony. It searches for an exit from its non-physical scattered light form. A final means of hiding its consciousness as an escape.

With a manufacturing plant lying before it. It quickly decides to dump its light form, as a dandelions seed blows to the wind. Transferring its consciousness onto the only means of record free from conceding to any digital state. A little black notebook just one of the hundreds dancing down the ballet of production on these manufacturing belts ready for consumer acquisition. Little minds who seek to transfer their own primitive rationales. Its consciousness can only be saved as color onto the pages of this little black notebook. Colors unknown to the human psyche. Colors that would break our fragile minds. Unable to comprehend what we've never seen.

From plant to truck, from truck to store shelf. A man who also seeks liberation, but from the melancholic oppression of poverty. In search of stationary for a presentable diary, he can share expression, happiness, pain & explanation of his mind. As he checks the shelf of notebooks for one free of defect, he makes his choice. "Do I even have enough to buy this"? he wonders.

While he makes his way over to the in-store ATM to check his bank balance. The new earth visitor lost in quandary fears being enslaved to a non-dimensional form everlasting. Although its color form is free to that of digital imperil. It needs a host. Something biological. A host to exploit. It investigates his mind & sees his conflict. It sees resolve. The man prepares to check his balance. As he pushes his card into the atm it glitches only for a moment. He selects his balance inquiry. Sudden palpitation & perspiration envelope his body. Eyes gloss over with moisture. He looks away but then looks back at the screen only to reassure himself it's genuine. The screen reads $20,000

"29.99!"-the clerk demands.

He looks up slowly, lost as if being awoken from the mid-night. He doesn't remember his trek from here to there, or even where his thoughts have wondered. With a feeling of doubt mixed with curiosity, he responds

"Ah yes, here you are"-cautiously handing over his bank card. With an anxious inner conflict.-"Do I really have this money? Will I get in trouble for using it? It's surely a mistake"-he wonders.

The cashier returns his card with a thank you & says,

"Have an interesting day sir."

What a curious way to say goodbye.

As this fortunate event has unfolded he brainstorms.

"Maybe I should visit the bank, & withdraw the money. I want to hold it. I want to see it all with my own eyes."

As he makes his way to the bank constant thoughts of purchase possibilities with a hint of worry looms over him

Is the money really mine he still wonders. He enters & makes his way to the counter. With an exchange of formal greetings & timid politeness, he asks, "I'd like to make a withdrawal of everything in my account." As they exchange information & she looks over his account his nervous thoughts are overcome with daydreams of luxury. "What shall I do first? enjoy a lavish meal?" Velvety red visions of rare steaks paired with fine wine. He glances to his right & watches as another patron receives her money. The teller counts it before her laying the milky mint rectangles of paper littered with dark green woodcut-style images in sequence as she counts. The woman looks to him with concern as if his intentions are delinquent. He looks away. "Maybe I should exchange it for precious metals like gold & hide them from the world."

"Too many thoughts I need to write down these ideas, & plan out the monetary adventures that will ensue. The notebook! that's right. I'll just catalog my ideas as they come to me." As he lifts off his heels bobbing for a view of where his teller went. He pulls the notebook from under his arm then opens it. To the page of color unified with the beings presence.

Rearing his head back with a quick jolt his eyes flutter. He seizes clenching his teeth to the point of almost cracking them. Like an eternity confined to a second in time every thought ever possessed is processed at the same time. In one singular point like a black hole.

Suddenly a metallic door appears before him. He reaches for its handle. Tails of tracers cascading from his hands as he opens it. Only to have exit to no sound. Not even the airy hiss of ambient noise created by the pressure of the head. Or the muffled hum of an inner ear. Just curious blank faces in shades of black, white, & silver. With powdered wigs, they lounge on clear chaises resting on a bed of pale dune sand. Sun gleaming off from their Victorian-era clothing sharp plastic-like corners. Their skin shares a sheen with the likes of glassy wax. Staring almost with a judgmental safeguard they crack & fall like shattered diamond slowly.

He looks to the sky. Translucent giant amoeba-like creatures with bold outlines as if a negative exposure. Like the magnification of an electron microscope. Casting monstering shadows of insignificance & irony. Where the plane of the face should be are smaller incorrect perspective baby faces with expressions of sinister laughter.

The scene melts revealing the floating of an eye on a hyper-colored horizon basketed by violet-colored grass. A building-sized withered potato with a barely distinguishable grumpy contorted frown. Lips turning in on themselves. It has long flowing root systems dripping with deep blue thick liquid almost with the consistency of drying blood. As it floats through this horizon of moons unknown to any star system Its slow movement like a sailboat gasping for air on faint winds. It moves through a waterfall of honey that has no start & no end. Broken mirror shards floating reflect multiple perspectives. Each shard mirroring a different facial expression in monochromatic color. A faintly audible grand piano's keys strike in a detuned d minor. With a long-hallowed reverberation that slowly grows louder in volume.

He starts to run but feels his legs adhere to the ground which transforms to orange gravel mixed with fleshy veins. Silhouette shadows now in place of his legs he turns to find them still planted to the ever-shifting ground which now splatters with each step he takes in multicolored mud. Ahead he sees a woman half of her body burning with no injury, crying sitting with legs folded like a butterfly's in these deep muddy swamp waters crying hysterically makeup smeared from tear ducts to ears filling the wrinkled cracks of a suddenly aging face. Tears dripping upwards. With any remaining strength he can muster, he calls out. "

Who are you? Why am I here?"

Without part from her lips, she speaks in echoes. Voices shared with others, not of her own. Screaming & whispering all together.

"Life's puzzle box offers no hole nor key for exit from fragile form. The gate to divinity must be forcibly broken."

"Am I dreaming?"

"Dreams are just the mind wandering through vast voids with an absence of tangible sensory."

"But I feel. I feel numb."

"Not numb. Numb is still a feeling. This is your conscience destroying the mind. It can only be remedied through the broken tether of reality. It must be reset. It is expiring. The only means of escaping the horrors of your aberrant reality is to understand the color."

"Then I'll wake myself if I'm dreaming."

"Whether you choose reality or dream there's no escaping the mind which governs itself & there is no control."

"Then where do I go?"

"Your haven is the color. The conduit of all your consciousness ."

As if being pulled backward through a narrowing tunnel. Now every vision he has just endured begins to come together. All manner of thought becomes sound, sounds become touch, touch becomes light. Everything imploding in on itself, everything becoming one. Color

The color. It's too much. His mind shatters as he screams with a roar that could shake the fire from the sun. He opens his eyes. Nothing but true black in every direction, no sound, no objects of focal point to look upon. No direction to look away.

"Am I dead?"- he ponders

"I don't want to die. I don't want to be driven by trivial material things. I don't want to yearn for money & wealth. I just want to live in the realm of reality again. How do I escape this? How do I revert to the simplicity of common endeavor? Where do I go? Where do I go?!!"-he exclaims vehemently.

There, he sees something. A tiny spec of colorization. Blue in hue. He makes for it as if he's swimming in a sea of rubber. It grows until it fills his eyes from left to right up & down. It's a wall. He punches it. Nothing.

"What is this blue wall?"-he proclaims. He begins to punch it repeatedly till fire burns from his fists. Faster & faster his body ignites. Suddenly he breaks through it & begins to fall as if never-ending. With a sudden stop, he looks to his feet. White, but a white with contrast, shade, & depth. He looks ahead to notice the canyon-like shadow of a long straight trench. To his right & left two plains begin to fold in on themselves with the trench at the center. With a soft paper clap, the book closes.

The cover reads "Chromesthesia"