stained

being entirely surrounded by a sphere of stained glass floating somewhere beyond the shadow of a planet with light pouring in continually since birth it was a shock when without warning someone switched off the sun

I have sufficient knowledge of solar mechanics to understand this must have been initiated thousands of years ago but it still felt like a deliberate injury undertaken, well, yesterday (I was in the light all my life but I did keep a clock and a calendar)

once my eyes adjusted to the comparative darkness, lit only by my own dim thoughts the interior of the sphere reflected a bronze filigree, the faint sheen remaining on some segments of glass the sort of patina you'd find on a brass plate that had been buried a long while

I'm not really into that Plato's cave thing and I don't want to stretch the metaphor too far but

it was depressing to suddenly lose the illusions that had saturated me since birth

fortunately I have the ability to communicate through various pieces of equipment left to me by my parents

before they grew cold

hence this message now beaming into your mind

though I guess you'll be as much in the dark as I am and won't necessarily want to concentrate on what I have to say

which is too bad because I have some information that should interest you

concerning persons with whom I believe recently you have been

intimate

including congress in bowers where you thought you were not observed

or had jammed the video surveillance

these persons you thought were downloading like one long swipe through a reading device that lasted for years

were just hot impressions and fragments of magnets each with its poles for instance

Susan and Mike and Linda and Xiao are you

writhing in simulated ecstasy (for everything is simulated) a foursome a twosome a one

in that moment between turning from the monitor

and rising from the chair

you inhaled grace

and lost your infinity

you were born

and I was no longer

necessary