chirping birds flitted past me, and a mild breeze kissed my face.

each a story and an experience, each a voice shouting or whispering or singing about what that moment, that feeling, had been like, each a cry into the void of time that they had been here, had existed.

The sun was already high.

“Don’t feel bad for one moment about doing what brings you joy.”

the chattering of small birds in the garden beyond the windows the only sounds.

the small brook

“Because your human joy fascinates me—the way you experience things, in your life span, so wildly and deeply and all at once, is … entrancing. I’m drawn to it, even when I know I shouldn’t be, even when I try not to be.”

As if the colors and lights and patterns of the world had come together to form one perfect place—one true bit of beauty.

My prison or my salvation—I couldn’t decide which.