The dream spit a black hole into the ether.
Ronaldo grew around the dying star, struggling to contain it without being consumed. He wasn’t entirely certain he would survive this adventure, but he was delighted to sort it out one way or another.
The wiggling eyelashes appeared first, individually shooting out from his lids one at a time in an undulating fashion that didn’t seem at all practical outside of the ocean. Ronaldo supposed nothing about his way of coming into existence each time held practicality if you gave it much thought.
Oh well.
The shadows revealed a swirling assortment of blindingly bright abstract whorls, eddying in over themselves frantically until it was a collection of scribbles. Bright magenta fused with the indigo, lit neon in the face of the crushing darkness within and without. The magnitude of such intensity crept into Ronaldo’s very core, taking over his form. It felt as if he missed a stair and wasn’t sure if he would catch the next one or the floor to his face.
Ronaldo rather liked this face. It came with a nifty little lightbulb!
An overwhelming emotion he couldn’t quite place dripped down his back, hardening the neon swirls into ice. Shame. Shame slid along the lights that stitched Ronaldo together, threatening to tear his very essence asunder. Ronaldo shook his dangling orb–shining light on the darkness to expose that nothing is there. He merely imagined projections of the shadows swirling him together to be other than they are.
That’s one way he could look at his light. Ronaldo could admit it was a trap. A lure to con someone into drawing near. Empty promises of something magical that ends in a fatalistic frenzy. A tasty morsel to devour as he saw fit. The urge was there, for sure.
But he didn’t need all that. Ronaldo didn’t want to eat anything but dreams. Ronaldo just wanted to use his light to show the darkness he wasn’t scared of the void inside of him, slowly consuming the streaks of apocalyptic sunset encasing it. His intensity was such that he could generate an abundant radiance to syphon off into nothingness for quite some time.
Ronaldo appreciated holding on to his form longer than usual. Eventually he faded into fireworks, exploding indefinitely until not at all.
—
Unbeknownst to Ronaldo, this brain was wired with booby traps and secret tunnels to better navigate the onslaught of malicious memories reverberating decades past their expiration date. Persistent reminders of things better left unthought clog the drain so this brain delighted at the chance to invite Ronaldo’s beautifully bizarre tendrils in, no matter the price of admission. It intuitively collaborated with the cryptid creeping around its cranium to remember a new way to express the tired and tedious luminosity of sheltering a personality disorder.
After a brief interlude with our favorite eyeball dude, however, the brain realized that being something other than ordinary was a gift that not all were given. That maybe, just maybe, those in a nearby orbit were seeking the supposedly shameful intensity specifically because it was in fact spectacular.
(e)Reader 