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Gray Areas
By Jacquelyn Smith
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Before me lay the option of two fates, in the palpable
form of dual
doorways to be precise. Although my surroundings seemed to lack every
color
of standardized spectrums I was somehow granted the ability to distinguish
between the onyx of the door to my left and pure white of the one to its
adjacent right. I had been made the pivotal region between these two
points,
a medium stuck in extremes perhaps. These images were coinstantaneous
creations of a prodigal mind, a mind which borderlined lunacy, making the
adjective "prodigil" an equivocal description. (Though one who
realizes
they possess an unsound psyche also realizes how near genius they actually
are...)
The door my retinas had coined "pitch black" was of
immediate intrigue,
not to propose I had yet made my selection but human curiosity of morbidity
is more prodigious by law of nature. My interest had been somehow sensed
and
I was then struck with an innate ability to exist beyond the door, physics
giving no regards to its stoic state. The antecedence of its threshold
encompassed a deluge of darkness, darkness in its most graphic and colorful
forms. Not a single of my six (nor seven, nor eight...) senses had been
prepared through earthly means for what macabre such a door could contain.
A
terror of twisted souls vanquished by some sinister being, (granted there was
a solitary evil domineering such rancor quarters, and not the devilry of a
thousand human spirits, [our spirits], wrenched into one), awaited my arrival
and clawed greedily at the living flesh before them. A wicked stench, more
potent then any natural scent of sulfur, filled the entirety of the area and
consumed my olfactory senses, almost to the point of suffocation. The
wizardry of demons was prevalent enough that some miscreant's talons seemed
to cut through the dead air at my face, the illusion so actual I was unable
to tell if the taste of blood upon my lips was merely in my mind. Had I
been
forced any further amongst the serpents which coiled at my feet I might have
become another unwilling captive in this inferno of death, but it was with
terrible pains that I found myself renewed and upright in my original place
betwixt the doors.
With a refreshed clarity of mind I then had the capacity to
trespass the
second entryway, which, of course, was not accomplished via physical means.
The quintessence of my new venture was one of sweet assuage. There was a
certain peace delivered by the felicities in a soft breeze brought forth by
some clandestined seraph who frolicked amid the verdant expanse. The lush
greenery, azure skies, and puffed cumuli gave an immense sense of serene
perfection to my wearied self. The scents of nature's most exquisite
floral
creations filled every inhalence as well as the surrounding earth which was
dappled and pied with their colorful arrangements. What greater paradise
should fall upon human eyes, I was unable to fathom but nonetheless my
decision could not be finalized. These two pinnacles, balancing in
precarious equidistance from each other and using my body as an axis, were
not for our minds to contemplate nor for our hands to graze. It was with
slight regret that I again returned to my staid position outside the doors.
With little more then a mere pause to breath the fallaced
air, I allowed
the restive floorboards beneath my feet, (or was it above my head..? for my
perception was quite disillusioned), to engulf what it pleased and render me
to the ambiguous existence from which I came.
