Bright

It would have been the 23rd day of what was once considered the month of June. God only knew the year. 

“It’s not so bad,” he thought, wiping the sweat from his brow as he sunk the shovel into the soil. 

“I mean, sure, it’s been pretty bright around here and I suppose it is a little crowded, but things could be worse.” He tossed the dirt onto the pile behind him.

The others continued pressing seeds into the ground. No one said anything. 

The sound of children playing could be heard in the distance. A choir sang somewhere on the other side of the wall. 

He risked a brief glance up from the dirt and squinted his eyes. A woman strolled past him along the path to the city, and her brilliance stamped the silhouettes of trees and the outline of the wall onto his retinas. He blinked but could not clear the image. He stared blindly down at the ground. 

All he could see was her. 

His own hands burned and itched. He slammed the shovel back into the dirt and felt the wooden handle scrape another layer of skin from his palms. There was something wrong with him.

He looked again at the woman, ignoring the searing pain. He wondered how she could walk. His own feet were buried in the shade of the soil, unmoving, and still burning as they warmed the ground around them. The woman twirled midstep in cadence with the choir’s song. 

He winced and closed his eyes. 

He could still see the swirl of her white dress captured against the full-color backdrop of the garden that sprawled outside the city wall–the very garden that he and the others had started long ago. The reds and oranges and yellows and greens and blues and indigos and violets and every other damn color of every kind of flower and tree blossomed and stained his mind, a kaleidoscope whirling around the woman, frozen in her moment of dance. 

She called out to someone, but the words were senseless to his ears. Most words were like that these days. His mind was too fixated on the hunger deep in his gut to grasp anything resembling words. 

The brightness somehow increased through the thin layer of his eyelids. He did not open his eyes, but heard a man respond to the woman. There was a melody to their interaction that harmonized with the choir and the birdsong floating through the garden. 

Like nails on a chalkboard.

He dropped the shovel and tried to cover his ears but the music became louder in the silence, as if his pulse was joining with all creation in glorious song. 

The longer he kept his eyes closed, the brighter it became, as if some internal luminosity was rising up from the depths of his being and burning out any instance of darkness. 

He hated the light. 

They all did.

 Had ever since they sat up in their graves to see the sun fading into oblivion and something brighter than any star descending upon the earth to burn away all that was, all that is, and all that ever will be and, in that horrifying moment, transform all things into something more than alive, into things that could not die, into things that could not be anything more than life and light itself. 

And in the end, all was light.

He groaned and blindly groped for the shovel. He felt someone push a seed into the ground and someone else cover it and someone else sprinkle a little water atop the mound. He opened his eyes and glanced around, this time ignoring the city behind him.

Something stretched around him like a sea of light, like waves rippling out in all directions. He vaguely recognized the shape of the others hunched over the ground in a huddled mass, inching forward together in tiny steps as they worked to expand the borders of the garden.

It had been awhile since they had rested. Maybe a few minutes or maybe a million years–he couldn’t remember. The garden stretched for thousands of miles; he wondered if they would be allowed to rest once it encompassed the whole earth—if they ever got that far, seeing as though they would be cultivating the trenches and valleys of evaporated oceans soon enough. 

He moaned and knelt down on the ground. 

Placed his face against the grass. 

Felt it tickle his lips. 

The almost pleasant sensation made him gasp, tears bursting forth and evaporating from his cheeks. 

He opened his mouth and took a bite.

Chewed and swallowed. 

The hunger grew inside him.

* * *

A woman strolled along the path to the city. The scent of flowers laced the air and met the choir’s song in the slight breeze. She twirled midstep.

Someone caught her attention. 

“John!” She exclaimed, rushing to the man who had once been her husband. 

“Rachel,” he said. 

They embraced. 

“What a beautiful day,” she said. 

They laughed. 

It had been the same wonderful day for a long time. 

They walked together and came upon a group of children running through the garden, playing a game of hide-and-seek.  A little boy broke from the group and ran to her.

“Mommy!” He cried, colliding with her just above the knees and wrapping his small arms around her. 

This boy was special. Not that his siblings weren’t, but that, in a sense, he was born here. Or was never born. Or something. She wasn’t exactly sure how to describe it. She had carried him for three months and then he had come here to wait for them. 

He grabbed both their hands and walked with them toward the city. His tiny voice joined with the choir as he skipped beside them.

She looked down at the boy. He was radiant. His father was radiant. She was radiant. 

Had been for as long as she could remember. 

She smiled.

Everything was so bright.