| vignette (vɪˈnjɛt) | |
| — n | |
| 1. | a small illustration placed at the beginning or end of a book or chapter |
| 2. | a short graceful literary essay or sketch |
| 3. | a photograph, drawing, etc, with edges that are shaded off |
| 4. | architect a carved ornamentation that has a design based upon tendrils, leaves, etc |
| 5. | any small endearing scene, view, picture, etc |
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“Do you see anything?” said the voice out of the darkness.
“What should I see?”
“Anything, I guess. Something. Maybe nothing. I’m not sure.
It’s why I’m asking you. Do you see anything?”
“Darkness I guess- lots of staticky darkness. Like dancing
flecks of faded light before my eyes every now and again. Is that what I should
be seeing?”
“Perhaps,” said the deep baritone voice rumbling in her
ears. “Concentrate on the place you want
to be most.”
“I’ll try,” said the soft feminine voice. “I’m afraid
though.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Ending up somewhere I don’t want to be.”
“Where would that be?”
“I don’t know, but I know I don’t want to think about it. I
thought you said I should think of a place I want to be?”
“Yes. You should.”
“Now you’ve done it.”
“What have I done?”
“I’m on the edge of a cliff.”
“Is that where you want to be?” rumbled the voice again.
“No,” came the tremulous response. “I’m afraid I’ll fall.”
“What would happen if you fell?”
“I don’t know. It’s so dark. I don’t know how far it goes
down.”
“So, take control. It’s your dream.”
“Am I dreaming?”
“What else could it be?”
“A nightmare then,” the soft voice whispered as a breeze
slipped through her hair and carried the sound with it.
“You can change it,” said the reassuring voice.
“How?”
“Imagine. Imagine an out. Imagine the stars above lighting
your way. Imagine a bridge from the cliff leading across it to a safer place.
Imagine there is no cliff. It’s your mind. Your thought. Imagine it, and it can
be real in this place.”
“Where is this?”
“We’re in the crenelated battlements of your mind. Where
else? Are you ready to wage war with yourself?”
“This is war?” she said weakly. “I’m not equipped for war.”
“You are.”
“I see something in the distance. Dark shapes oozing and viscous.
I’m standing on the parapet of a castle’s walls now,” her voice shudders where
her body is unable to. “They’re frightening.”
“Doubt.”
“Excuse me?”
“They’re your doubts.”
“That’s what doubt looks like?”
“To you it does. Others’ doubts may look different. To you,
they’re dark shapes. The question is,
will you fight them?”
“What will happen if I don’t?”
“They’ll destroy you.”
“I see. I can’t negotiate?”
The sound of deep rich
laughter drifts to her.
“So that’s a no,” she says a bit of humor seeping into her
own voice as she realizes the inanity of such a question.
“Alright then,” she says as steel seeps into her voice. “I’ll
fight. Will you help?”
“I already am.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m you.”
“I’m no baritone.”
“And so you’re not,” came the rich contralto.
“I'm not a contralto either, but I like it, I just don’t understand.”
“I am your strength—your will. I can sound however you
imagine. I can be whatever you imagine. You imagined me as a baritone and now
as this. I’m you, whatever you imagine you to be.”
“I’m odd.”
“I won’t argue with you. They’re getting closer. Shall we
begin?”
“Yes. Let’s.”
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