White light: a strange kind of darkness. Yet here, in a world devoid of comparatives, black could be any colour he chose to imagine.

And imagination was a friend once, but even that had left him now. Only a sterile residue of thoughts remained. Hazy conceptions of right and wrong; of good and evil; of love and war; and of life and death still languished in what he believed to be his head. Nebulous notions failing to develop beyond rudimentary sparks, aborted synaptic functions. Mind’s chemical brew diluted to homeopathic proportions.

The elementary biological circuitry remained, as ever, intact. What failed to coagulate was the rich heritage of notions and beliefs. And memories – memories of actual experiences that all sentient beings forge from their daily life. The exciting and the mundane stored as neural connections ready for reuse for survival, or for carnal advantage, or to empathise with the hapless morons that abound the universe.

But not here, for here, he was alone.

His mind – completely deprived of sensory input, blinded by the light that was darkness – failed him again, and that failure delivered fresh urgency to his plight. Fighting to distinguish himself from the light that engulfed this world so completely and enslaved his spirit so remorselessly, he was tired. Tired like the wounded fox. Dead tired. So tired that he had long since forgotten how to invent monsters that weren’t really there, or how to create sounds from silence, or to touch that which had no form.

Here in the silent, blinding solitude, without so much as a landscape or even a whisper of air for company, he could feel his body – such as he perceived it – rotting from with. Cell pulling from cell; himself merely a nebulous semblance of what might be. Or Christ, even worse, what may have been. That later notion shook him hard like the lonely paranoia of a bad trip, or the biggest, scariest whitey from one reefer too many. His fear disseminated quickly, fusing with the molecules about him. Fear and light conspired to consume him like a hungry hound.

He thought hard. The choice was simple: find someone who could provide a will, a context, a purpose, a form. Or else….

No. It would be too easy to curl-up and not exist, and become part of the void. There was no choice. He must think hard, reveal himself to a suitable host, a willing surrogate.

It took a long time – perhaps forever – but at last his shapeless body began to solidify into an Idea.

* * *

Kerrbane had this crazy notion. No one else would understand, so what was the fucking point in even trying to explain? But here’s the rub: it was also too fucking big, too stark, to keep to himself. The oldest dilemma in the book.

The metal barrel tasted bitter and cold in his mouth, but hey, this was to be a very transient discomfort.

Pulses leapt around the constellations of his mind. Myriad galaxies circled the universe trapped in his cranium. After successive orbits, alignment was reached in the blink of an eye, and the ligaments in his right thumb flexed.

* * *

He had a some delirious notion of shape and form, and of – what was it – taste? For a split second the darkness engulfed the light and he could see. He could see and touch and taste. But doubt quickly rolled in like a thick blinding mist. White clouds of air that he could not see beyond; white light: a very strange kind of darkness.

* * *