His slight, pale form trembled under the weight of seven dedications; given freely, but with cost, from a soul without ties, yet bound hard and pained by sacrifice. Within each breath lay the last paradox unchained, rendered meek and yielding under a harness of will. Time chased its tail in the close white room.

He did not hear the creaking and snapping of the tortured timber, the vibration that flaked paint from walls and ceiling. Chips of grimy enamel stuck like dirty snow to the half dry blood splashed upon his skin. He remained standing, arms outstretched, fingers splayed, head thrown back. In his arms and thighs, slender muscles pulled hard at his bones, sinews corded in unrelenting strain. Nothing could be seen of his eyes, hidden at the base of two slim ribbons of uncoloured, unsubstanced void, shifting and lashing, whipping vipers denying the very air in a whine of unmaking.

The arrival was unheralded. He had no preconceived notion of manifestation - no texts had recorded it, none of the supposed teachers had done more than guess at it. He had knelt at the feet of the wise, read the preserved words of the long dead. From fragments of knowledge, guesses and blind faith had he built in himself a truth - but a truth that represented no more than the key, and a blinding desire for the lock.

He tasted his thoughts as they were crushed small by a burning song of gold, and light, and love, and anger. In images and sound, textured pain and liquid presence; communication!

The many years of searching, studying, questioning; in moments charred and scattered by the form and the voice. So long seeming was the focus on simple pleasures and sensations - the preservation of meaningless existence. Now this mind's touch, this sound and being ... he was pinned beneath the weight of a sun's revelation. He laughed aloud - the first sound to escape his lips in more than a year. A simple rhyme it was, or at first it seemed -

nothing's thought, dead hand's feeling
scarlet quiet, our time stays kneeling
born of void, no matter's tether
unheard, unspent, unmade forever

filigree and verdigris
entwined of light, a formless bliss
unpierced, unbound, unweildy now
ecstactic scream, and tasted vow

abused in fancy, chained by men,
unworked, unknown, unloved and then
sweet emptiness, a brimming cup
sundered words and blood to sup

undone, undone, undone again
in clockwork thoughts and loveless pen
counting, working, serve but strife
you steal each breath, each plodding life

He could sense greater meaning wrapping each roiling missive; great clouds of intent and desire, pain and betrayal and promise that hid within and around the only words he was able to form in rough semblance. In an exquisite painful torrent of emotions and images -

speak then ... speak of the things to be had, deeds to be done. Speak and form - from thoughts create. All is the unguided hand of desire. All is the pain, and the pleasure, the guilt and the joy. All is the unbound and potential. Only yours is the pretext and motive, the action and creation.

He had been the patient searcher, inspecting the wall for flaw or mechanism. So many lifetimes of scrutiny, thought and study bent to this aim; this hidden door. How mistaken he had been. With an insight that lashed tight now to the source of his yearning, and sang loud of truth to all he had become, he chose at last.

I embrace all things
as it has been

I deny all things
as it should be

I am all things
as it will be

...I am an imagination
...I am an imagination

A light beyond light, noise without sound, all twisting beyond and through. An empty room, chipped paint littering a floor spattered with droplets of bright blood. A building full of sleepers, starting awake at a half-imagined cry of sweet joy.