Ronaldo was uncertain if he ever assembled himself only to immediately reassemble all the bits and bobbles a moment later. Not even scrapping it to make a new thing. No, Ronaldo was somewhat certain he never rearranged himself into a slightly different version of exactly the same thing he had only finished making, but here he was doing it like a boss all the same.
When Ronaldo first arrived on the astral landscape it was still dark. The Void was always impressively absent of light so Ronaldo expected that from the all seeing surroundings squeezing him in from all sides. No, this intrinsic darkness came from inside the dream itself, as if his borrowed form was a shadow playing pretend at corporeality. A being that should be effervescent held a diffused glow instead. How curious to be comprised of the faint whisper of light left moments before the brittle filament winks out of existence at the end of a bulb’s life.
He hadn’t eaten a spicy depression dream that he knew of. Ronaldo was used to those and couldn’t detect the lachrymose undertones that usually clogged his palate. Instead, Ronaldo felt the build-up of unrelenting energy trapped somewhere, all of it coated in shame and emptiness. Ronaldo shed a few of the more obvious problems–broken tubes and frazzled wires–styling them into the beginning of something new. Once he could see the shape of what was to be Ronaldo set to work.
One by one, various shadows swirled into an exploding array of colors until Ronaldo was all lit up and ready to rest. The previously bedimmed figure blinked back at the night with such intense ferocity that it caused The Void to choke. The Void quickly tried to play it off like it was a cough, but Ronaldo knew better. He beamed in this newfound glory.
Ronaldo’s head and sleeves were adorned with intricate sculptures of frayed wires he twisted into wisps. No broken parts were scrapped, only reimagined into a new way of being. Ronaldo’s inner glow danced over these discarded parts so they shone just as brightly as the rest of him.
The Void and Ronaldo looked into one another for a long while until Ronaldo began to flicker. He blinked his massive eyeball, humming with dying electricity, until it didn’t open again.
—
She awoke the next morning, unsure of what was different. She scrunched her nose and scanned the room to see if it held any clues but she knew it wouldn’t. The change was inside her. For a moment she sat and puzzled over what was different until the difference took over. She got up and walked to her desk to see a blank canvas. Yesterday the canvas taunted her. Today it illuminated the room. A beacon bringing her back to herself the only way she knows how– one brushstroke after the other. Surely she wasn’t done berating herself forever, but the voice paused long enough to let her begin something small. Something she would be able to build one flake at a time until an avalanche of her own skill and perseverance smothered her crippling self doubt once and for all.
(e)Reader 