*fire

Midnight came and went. Savka lay on his bed in his darkened room looking out the skylight above. He fantasised about blotting out the stars one by one with a Sharpie permanent black marker. Scribbling over the moon. Starting over. Tabula rasa.

Like bumping into the infinite on a street corner, Savka wasn't so sure he would recognise the moment between being awake and asleep when he met it. Is it even a full second? he thought. Half a second? Is it any time at all? Perhaps untime. No, maybe more like non-time. Savka closed his eyes, and before he knew it, was asleep.

The next morning, Savka thought back on his slip into unconsciousness. When did it happen? Where did that moment go? Like a reflection turned inside out, it simply disappeared? Like a shadow folded up and placed into an envelope of darkness? Like it was dropped into the magician's hat? Maybe, just maybe, it never existed at all. Each moment, a moment is born while simultaneously disappearing into itself. Born and unborn in an instant. Two sides bound together, twisting and turning, plummeting at terminal velocity. The flipping of a coin, flashing in the moonlight.



*Last night, a dream of a ravenous, all-consuming fire. Before it could burn me, I was able to ask it a few questions: Were you born? If so, do you age? What do you dream of when you sleep? I received no answers. Hungry, near starving, the fire swallowed me whole, its roar smothering my screams.