apogee

The room glows expectantly as my foot crosses its threshold and meets the astral-colored carpet spotted with fluorescent stars. It swallows my untidy human sounds like the vacuum of space as I float alone to the center, equidistant from two black doorways. A light behind the wall washes it deep blue like a horizon, settling my spirit, and I look to the top corner of the tall room where a little bed, neatly made and painted red, with plaid blanket and soft sheets and nebular pillow, waits suspended, bathed in the artificial light of a smiling crescent moon surrounded by three smiling five-pointed stars. The only lights left are false, artifacts of copied memories, childhood remnants dislodged, floating away. And the floor slowly sinks as I remember what I forgot, what is now unreachable, and I stare at the receding bed and accept the finality of this room and release a tear that falls up but doesn't quite reach the substitute moon.