Note from the Author: No, I don't know what's wrong with me, but thanks for wondering!
Light
There is a deathly lack of air in the room to which I wake. A sense of foreboding fills this darkness and I can not place the source of my distress.
I lift myself, feeling as though I haven't moved at all. I am only aware of my bed beneath me, my sheets pooling comfortingly in my lap as I scan the emptiness.
The silence. That is what unnerves me so in this moment. The dreadful ringing of nothing in my ears. My chin makes gentle acquaintance with my knee, reminding me I am still a physical being.
It clicks in my lethargic mind, whose wheels are just beginning to turn again out of slumber, that there has been a power outage. The dull thrum of electricity has failed to penetrate my ears, and my bony fingers wrap around my bony ankles in an attempt to not be afraid.
The silence seems to be pregnant with presence, with excitement, as if something is on the verge of happening. When I was a child, sudden silence inspired a fear of explosions in me, of anticipation of nuclear annihilations from which I couldn't hide, and this panic returns to me now, rising in my chest like a living entity, like a prayer.
A candle flickers to life near what I assume in my disorientation is my doorway, and your sweet face is illuminated by it, but I am sure you glow all on your own. Just as your pretty soprano voice rises to comfort me, asking if I am alright, a rumble sounds as of a creature awakening, and you touch the light switch.
The room bursts into bright fluorescence, and you blow the candle out with a puff, smiling at me through the snow as I hug my knees. I wonder in moments like these if you are not the only light in my life.