A voice resonates in my head interrupting nighttime’s silence—sleep’s forgiveness. This voice shouts down the drone, insisting on knowing an answer to a question that forever lingers within the depths of my perceived sanity. I try not to listen, but this voice promises malignity if ignored.

Outside my cognizance, a soft wind rustling through the pines offers assistance. A crickets’ choir chirps a Dorian melody; the resonant voice refuses my attempts at constructing a chordal progression—played on piano or guitar. I’m held hostage. My open eyes, burning in the shadows’ smoke hovering above my bed, when closed know they will see a phantasm that fears not dawn devouring the indigo and moonlight. The voice reminds me that its persistence will trump my procrastination: minutes will melt into hours; days will disappear into inconspicuous madness. The very thing I refuse to describe will take form—devolve my purpose. Defeated, I close my eyes, conjuring up images best left alone.

Blue is not the color of the ocean. A high tide weakens beneath a fog’s encroachment. I stand at the Atlantic’s edge listening to the many rocks, worn by surf and time, call out their colors: red-sandstone, purple-brown, charcoal, eggshell, and spotted black with a mica shine. I’ve become colorblind, insignificant; my lungs fill with stagnant air. I can’t exhale. The cold water laps at my feet yet fever ferments within my soul. Torment hidden within ocean sounds is nothing more than seagulls hovering over lost sailboats in the channel’s confusion. Still the deep does beckon… a reprieve—joke?

Wading into the water, I’m walking on a carpet of nothing. A cannon booms out past the camper’s island, signaling not for the sails to catch wind to race, but for me to plunge beneath the wetness. Still, blue is not the color of the ocean; the fog whispers to me; I hesitate, hoping allusions are illusions as skepticism seduces hope. The ocean smells my confusion. Brine panders a blunt remembrance of the brown lighthouse, the green grass above the cove and sightings of dolphins swimming along a commuter ship ferrying lost souls intent on rediscovery of purpose. The one voice I wish to hear remains silent. The one smile I wish to see is lost treasure, yet rediscovered. My tears cry along side me. The fog drops its grey curtain offering no solace, just a spiteful mist; within desolation is an ocean of doubt retreating to low tide. Ebb and flow… ebb and flow.

I try to jump the undertow; the bottom surf upwells decay. What thoughts I have left decompose, yet the urge to swim from the past strengthens. Perhaps I can ride what’s left of my sanity towards the ship of lost souls, finding my redemption—freedom? But the fog disorientates my determination. I’m once again lost at sea. There is no fear. I scrimshaw, “You can’t drown in pity.”  Holding on to my words carved in long forgotten aquatic enamel, I regain my bearings. As I do this, a serene cloudless sky opens up, swallowing the fog. The ocean is again blue. I am no longer color blind; I exhale exalted relief. The Atlantic issues a cold warning: down in its murky depths, silence is never satisfied, it wants irrational cogency. I wade back to shore tired—fearful of the fog.

My visualization silences the voice within: the drone continues but is easily ignored. My marathon of thought has blanketed me in sweat. There’s a coolness caressing me; I sense a reprieve—a beginning.  In the distance, beyond the asphalt, parked cars and rooflines that caress the night, I whisper hello to a world that once awakened will demand much within lockstep’s logic. I wait for the voice to resonate anew; its intrusion diminishes to a promise to reappear without notice. But reappear it will, if not within me then within an invasive thought that will torment others with demands to explain what is best left silent.  Exhausted, I smile. A tear rolls down my cheek, I can taste it, feel it. Soon my dreams will return all that I’ve lost.