sunkissed, worldless

07

Static and the soft clinking of ceramic plates coming from the kitchen flushed with water. Fresh Prince plays on TV, but she's not really paying attention for the majority of the episode. There's a buzz in the back of her head and she wonders if it was God trying to speak, if he's finally answering her.

Adele reaches for the remote, turns down the volume. She doesn't remember why she did it, staring at the screen and she feels vacant inside almost. Until she hears a distant clicking coming closer like a huge lever snapping into place and Will Smith cuts off.

The room goes pitch black.

She screams, startled.

There's footsteps and she thinks it's her mother, because who else would it be. The sound of curtains parting. Adele stands and aimlessly sticks out her hands. She collides with the sofa armrest by the hips on her way to the light, "Ow," walks it off and peers outside to the streets.

The darkness is unfamiliar, because it's not all dark. There's a bright explosion of colors outside, draping on their rooftops. She's blindsided for a moment, hides her eyes behind her fingers.

"Mom?" she calls out, "Mom, what happened?"

"Adele, here, now."

She follows her mother's voice out the door and onto the platform porch. And the town clamours with their families, in awe at the ethereal intruders now replacing night with broad daylight. Some of her neighbours yell, start up their cars and drive off.

"Richard— what's going on?"

"Everyone calm down, it's just a blackout." The man from the neighborhood watch reassures them. She's forgotten his name, but that's fine because he never remembers her mother's. "My wife has extra candles if anyone needs them."

No one really corrects him, that they were less worried about the electricity cutting off than literally heaven knocking at the cusp of their suburb. Adele wonders how their pastor is feeling right now.

"It's an aurora!" she says proudly, remembers it from the nature encyclopedia she got from her grandma.

Her mother answers her in a whisper, "That's nice, sweetie."

Adele shoves her disappointment down her chest, wilting quietly. The sky sprawls like a ribbon sent from the other side of the world, shooting from the horizon. Colors of purple and green swirling in lines like giant wind chimes, except it's eerily quiet.

And it was quiet for a while until someone came along to tell them what's going on, the incessant questions in school and the fact they could never fix the fuse no matter how many times they flipped the switch.

Since then, it looked like the sun would drop out of the sky and roll away. Like a cardboard cutout through a paper thin play.

She remembers seeing the family of four across the street that night, the parents standing protectively over their youngest while the brother runs off hollering. Remembers the face of the young Asian girl across the street, hands on the barrister and looking curiously to the sky.

Adele could've sworn they locked eyes and she only sees a blank reflection of the light, like she's possessed by it. And she argues since everyone is looking at it, that's how she would've looked like too.

       Infinite nesting pushes all matter
       towards emptiness;
       child-nodes,
       tree-droppings
       with a root element of null.
       None is always included
       in every cluster
       of children.
       Nothing in nothing
       prepares us.