In His Throne by Harlen Rembert

SECOND PLACE

In His Throne by Harlen Rembert

He finds himself still sitting in the driveway, in the same lawn chair,

from the same warm, sun-soaked garage.

It is his throne,

for he is the ruler of his own invisible world.

A world which he is no longer sure he can know,

or even see distinctly.

In two years’ time,

he fell into more than he ever imagined.

He discovered a group of people,

different from him, yet impossibly similar,

like members of a foreign civilization

living next door, looking out at the same street.

He fell headfirst into a whirlpool of color,

skin as soft as lace,

eyes like gems yet to be polished,

brilliant within, only encased in a film of dust.

He fell into the realization that the greatest gem of all

is found under the most dirt.

In his mind, a projector runs,

replaying every moment,

every memory preserved in spiritual celluloid.

He watches the movie he has made,

and begins to wonder if it ought to have been redone,

scene by scene, take after take,

if it is all only one installment in a never-ending franchise,

or if it ever really happened that way at all.

A firefly blinks in the murk under a tree,

a friend coming back from the numbness which never seemed to end.

Gradually, like sparks drifting up from a dying fire, another blinks, and more follow.

He reaches out his hand, enclosing one gently, tentatively,

within his fist.

It crawls out, its antennae waving, and flies off.

So does the next one that comes by, and the one after that, and the next one.

They don’t need him in order to fill the crevices of the dusk with their glow.

Each of them flies through the world, winking at each other,

not caring whether or not he watches,

or if he thinks they are beautiful.

They were beautiful,

even as they floated away, blurring back into the murk.

This is the one other thing he has come to know,

in addition to the sounds of the other insects, as he looks up at the sky

(for the thousandth time? The millionth? The infinitieth? The last?):

that each one he saw was beautiful,

the ones that blinked the brightest, the ones that blinked often,

even the ones that never blinked in front of him.

His thoughts crescendo as the image of the sky fills his eyes.

Clouds rumble silently overhead, swimming away as they always have.

Some roll over themselves again and again, clumping into a different shape each time.

Others, like his world, grow longer, then break into gauzy strips,

and eventually fade from view completely.

He knows now, more than ever,

that this moment he loves will not last forever,

or even much longer.

It will all unfold, a massive book spread open from cover to cover.

For even the longest book, the author must still write “The End.”

Finally, the projector flashes the dark question in his mind,

and he wonders if, as God watches him,

He already has the final chapter in mind,

when He will write “The End” and close the book.

The thought sits in his mind,

like everything that sat, unresolved,

between him and the beautiful creature that quietly slipped into his mind

through the bottom of a locked door.

He thinks it ought to disturb him, but he instead contorts his face into something

that is no longer a smile, but not quite an expression of pain.

He breathes it all in,

because he doesn’t care what will happen anymore, he just wants to gaze at the sky.

For the boy in the lawn chair grew up,

and lost some of his wonder,

but he never lost the sense of amazement he got

when he looked up at the clouds.