Luminary clock

[leone]

Title: Luminary Clock
Author: leone
Rating: G
Character(s): Watson
Summary: The passage of time
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Consistent with any universe. Fill for July 21st prompt: "Acquainted with the Night, by Robert Frost"
Word Count: 409

He opened his eyes. Above him there was nothing: a deep blue nothingness that hypnotized him. It was so empty that he first thought his eyes were still closed. The back of his eyelids, however, was usually a sort of brownish-black, occasionally shot through with unnoticeable patterns of light. This unbroken blue was unusual and fascinating. He pondered it for a while, then closed his eyes again.

When he opened his eyes, he decided to examine this nothingness against a frame of reference—his own body, if nothing else, but he did not (could not) move, so he shifted his gaze around instead. To the right there was nothing; to the top there was nothing, but he felt something tugging at his attention to the bottom left, and he looked. There was a bright disk there—too bright to look at, so he closed his eyes again.

When he opened his eyes, the bright disk was immediately overhead.  He glanced away, to the top, to the right, to the bottom left; again, the same blue—perhaps slightly lighter. He looked back at the disk, but it was still too bright. He closed his eyes again.

When he opened his eyes, the disk was gone. There was perhaps a hint of glow to the top right, but he couldn’t see it just by moving his eyes. The nothingness was a much lighter blue, not nearly as interesting as it had been before. He decided he did not want to look at it any more, but before he could close his eyes, he heard a voice, far away, syllables flowing freely but unintelligibly in a circular pattern. Two syllables in particular continued to repeat. They seemed somehow more evocative than the others, arousing in him the desire to respond somehow. He turned his gaze to the top right, as far as it would go, but even the glow of the disk was gone now. The blue was very light, and beginning to hurt his eyes. He closed them. The voice was much nearer now, and he felt a much stronger urge to respond, but he thrust it down indignantly. He had tried the first time, but the disk was gone, so that was just too bad.

The voice was almost overhead now. He ignored it, and drifted away on brown nothingness. It was not as interesting as the blue, but the light that played against it did not hurt his eyes.