A MAN WITH NO HOME
Tell me, sweet stranger, do you know the story of Normant Lumensky, the man from a mystical land universes away from Earth? Making an ark out of his chains, he turns from a prisoner of war into a fugitive.
A WOMAN AGAINST THE WOR...
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IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, I was pulled out of unconsciousness by an incandescent light. At first I did not bother opening my eyes, thinking it was probably just a dream, something my brain had produced in the paralyzing state that sleep was. There was nothing to startle me, nothing brusque I could not fend off. That was why I just nestled deeper into Abel's embrace, having the cadence of his breaths as my lullaby, his scent of bergamot luring me into sleep again.
Yet the light stayed, growing brighter and fiercer as if a long-lasting lightning had flashed across the darkness of my sleep. When all I could see with my eyes closed was a divine fluorescence, I gave in to curiosity and opened them.
In hindsight, I should not have.
Because to muffle the scream that demanded to escape my lips was the hardest thing I had been forced to do. And I had dealt with multiple tough situations in my life so far. Jumping out of bed, one hand over my mouth to not make a sound, and the other on my heart to stop it from breaking, I took a few steps back.
"What the fuck?" I said under my breath as I watched a crystal blue glow glinting off Abel's body like a rainbow sprouting off of his veins.
With quaking footsteps, I made to get out of the room, out of this apartment that seemed more like a mausoleum, the castle of satanic forces and delusions. But I was frozen there, in the middle of his bedroom, watching Abel sleep peacefully among the pillows, his face showing no malice or wickedness. He looked normal, as normal as he could look with that light, that glow that made me think that his aura had stopped being something invisible, something difficult to spot. All the string lights in the world had found refuge in his body, forming silver halos over his head, painting his arms neon blue.
"Dear God," I said to myself, grabbed my purse and dashed out of his place the way logic had disappeared from this room—all at once.
🪁
I did not talk to Abel for the rest of the week even though he called me up daily, sent me text messages and funny videos of dogs he found on YouTube. I did not talk to anyone. I stayed in my apartment all alone, searching on the Internet about anything that could be useful, anything that could explain that sight. I wrote down everything abnormal I had noticed about him from the very first moment we had met up until now. I tried to piece it all together.
I knew that I was not hallucinating. I was not making that up. But still, I could not find a way to explain it. I checked countless articles about people's auras, how they looked, what each color represented, but nothing clicked. And the thought that he was something divine and mystical and out of that world was at least terrifying to me. For I had always disliked horror movies and now they had become my reality. In all honesty, I was frightened. I was a figment of western culture, and the closest I had ever come to spirituality was doing monthly tarot readings for fun.
What was Abel if not a man like all of us? And what did that mean for the world we lived in? Countless ideas, scenarios and questions flitted through my mind. None of them made sense. None of them provided me with comfort or clarity. So elsewhere I shall seek it.
