Ray

A set of stone stairs descends from something into nothing. At the edge of creation a man stands at the base of these stones staring into a deep black. Behind him the world exists, or rather the edge of the world.

The edge of the world is hard to picture and the something that it sits on even harder. Imagine a piece of the earth, a vision in time, captured. An essence stored in space, or rather floating in space. Picture a stone platform only a few feet wide on each side, framed by a brown wooden fence, floating in an endless starless sky. In the center of the platform stands a single black lamp post. It illuminates its surroundings however brief they may be. The light of the lamp does not travel past the fence, to the contrary.  It seems as if the flat black on the other end of the platform is pushing the light back.  It feels dark. On one end of the platform is a set of stone stairs that only last a few steps, then suddenly as if from nowhere at all, comes nothing. The steps don't dissappear but rather cease to be after that point.  They drizzle away at the edge, sometimes many stairs and sometimes few, dancing in and out at the corners of your view, even when you're staring right at them. And then from no discernible point to no discernible point stands nothing.  This is the hardest part to imagine, if you haven't seen it before.  When you hear "nothingness," you conjure an image of total darkness.  It's far scarier than that.  When your eyes are open in a pitch dark room and you can't tell if it extends one foot or one million.  When you reach out and step cautiously because you can't tell where you are in relation to anything else.  A shroud of pure emptiness.  It simply is not there.

A man stands on the lowermost step. He is clad in a full suit of armor. He holds his helmet limp in his hand and gazes into nothing. Gazes into what he cannot hope to see. There is no one there to see him but the man in armor sweats from anxiety. His heart is beating on his rib cage like a drum, and his ribs are playing a roll on his suit of armor. The suit of armor rustles nervously.  If this weren't such a desolate and lonely place, it would be rather cozy.  For how distant it is, it feels rather warm.  A summer night with a breeze under a street lamp.  Where you are encompassed in light and eclipsed by it, and then you step out beyond the umbrella of the lamp's reach and you can see the painting from which you just stepped.  The perspective in your head, of both situations at once, twisting back and forth to create a wonderful little storybook setting just for you.  It's a little different here, at the end, but not much.  The man turns back and faces the platform from the bottom step.  The urge to fall backward grips him tightly and holds him in place.  He can only watch for now.

The fringes of the lamp light illuminates the tips of leaves on trees reaching from outside the platform.  Reds and greens and soft yellows of the fall, even though it feels warmer.  A stone street runs past the platform to the right.  Whether an imaginary place, an imprinted memory, or something else entirely, he does not know.  He simply enjoys the view.  Beyond that, the street ventures off into the woods and turns sharp to the right.  To the immediate right, through a horde of trees he can see a hilltop, but everything beyond is obscured by trees and darkness.  He sees himself under the light.  Wearing plain clothes, brown pants and a black shirt.  No shoes and no armor. As if in a movie, dancing styles he does not know, spinning and leaping, staying lit and smiling.  Standing still.  Looking up.  And finally, sat underneath it, off to the side, one leg extended, the other bent at the knee, resting on the bent leg.  He likes that one most, and he watches it for a while.  Watches himself look around, take in the sights.  Takes in the smells himself.  The warm breeze, the foliage, the stone.  They smell incredible.  This piece of a picture, suspended in time and space. It's what he has always dreamed. The ideas in his head, forming right in front of him.  To be within and without, only needing the joy and majesty of the Earth, his view, his surroundings.  To be simple and clean and light and dark.  To be a wanderer and at home.  Vagabond and King. 

A man in a suit of armor stands on the lowermost step on a staircase at the edge of the world.  Nothing behind him, quite literally, and something in front. He takes the next few steps up, onto the platform, with great difficulty. The armor falls away as he takes each step,  shedding itself of him.  As he makes his way under the lamp light he is clad only in soft, straight brown pants, and a large cotton black shirt.  He is lighter now, more at ease.  His hand rests gently on the lamp post as he approaches it, he does not stop to feel it longer.  The first step out of the light towards the back of the platform is all black, but in each subsequent step, his eyes adjust.  Now there is a leaf on the ground, and another.  A trail of breadcrumbs. Feet follow them, him pushing them along, but not knowing, only wanting.  The barefoot man keeps plodding along until the stone is grass and then brush and then root.  He stops and gazes up.  A forest surrounds him.  In front.  To the sides.  And behind.  His cheeks reach his ears and he spins.  He does movements unknown to him, but from his mind.  Where he was once on the edge, he is now in the very center.  The exact middle.  The heart.