Save Me

The sky, blank and indefinite, hovers above the friendless traveler. The ground, sopping the heavens' liquid waste, squelchs beneath his feet. No. How very tied to Earth were his thoughts... it never rained here. Everywhere were the heavens and nowhere because they don't exist. The horizon is but an idea lost to this world where the earth melts into the sky. Grass and hill and sky fade from the mind's eye with its blandness. No one can possibly concentrate hard enough to wrap their mind about it for long. Eventually even the mind wanders, even when it is the only thing keeping its holder sane. The pathless wilderness wandered on and the traveler wandered with it. This was Limbo. If there were a sun it was lost entirely but for the blinding light that filled this world from every direction at once and forever.

Nothing lives in Limbo. Nothing moves in Limbo. That sole, weary traveler is the only life to be found. There isn't even much life to be found in him; not since he found himself there. He can't even remember what it was like before. Was there ever a before?

Soon, he knows, his bones will fall to join the blinding grey firmament. He knows this. He knows it isn't far off, now. He knows it is forever off; there is no time in Limbo. He could live a million lifetimes and the blinding light would never waver; his legs would ache but never give out; he would go without food, without water and without death.

What crime had he committed to be left in this albino abomination of a world?

No crime, his mind tells him. This isn't punnishment handed down from an angry god. There is no room for anger in this white world. There is no room for joy. Its infinite vastness held nothing. White. The absence of color. The absence of anything, everything except light. This is death without heaven or hell. This is the barless prison for the lost soul. Lost soul... Is that what he is?

Maybe, just maybe, if he travels far enough, he might once again find the edge of reason. Home is his inspiration, or at least his desire to be anywhere but there. That is why he walks, why he trudges on against all odds into this ghastly, ghost-white purgatory. Or maybe he's just trying to postpone insanity. Or perhabs he's just bored.

Night take him, tame him, save him from his fate.

Nothing could be worse than oblivion.

Stars for friends and the moon as his wayward keeper,

pluck him from this world of everlasting day;

save him from its penetrating rays.

Let his soul absorb all it lacks

and comfort him in the dark of night.

Let him rest at last.

A line of black in the distance. Drawing closer it appeared a stand of trees, marking the horizon. Oh! Free at last! Hope wobbled out of the crack in the wall of the farthest corner of his mind. It had hidden itself in a dirty closet to wait out the hide-and-seek game of life and death. Hope cannot live in the light and the light of Limbo had managed to penetrate most every corner of this man's mind with its relentlessly singular logic. Finally, the light had been broken and hope had the courage to peek out the closet's shutters, brushing the forgotten suits aside that it had moments ago used as a shield. What it saw was enough to rekindle it, but not enough for it to dive out of its safe haven. No. Slumping, squelching strides stayed even in the sucking earth as the traveler made his steady way to the stand of trees.

Grey skies dimmed as he approached the spindly black fingers. They darkened in anger, they darkened to prepare for battle. This man's soul was now the property of this realm. Limbo had staked its claim, but that claim had gone ignored. Those stingy black digits had wrenched the man from his rightfull fate, from Limbo's grasp. Limbo wouldn't let him go; not now.

It fought bitterly against those ebony spines, bleeding them even as they stole from it. Passing into the slightest of shadows the baren trees cast, the traveler stares upwards in awe at the red streaks in the sky, hungry for color. He's ignorant of the immortals' battle; ignorant of all but his own salvation.

He's free to rest now as the trees envelop him and block out the light. Only pinpoints can poke through the black shield the forest of night provides. They smile at him, these lights; no longer destructive, but the friendly twinkle of an eye. The twinkle of an eye of eternal possibility to keep him company as he lay suspended; suspended in a dream.

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