The Crowning Moment

A light flashed past her eyes. Bright. Sudden. In the moment her world split. Time broke down into the spaces between seconds. Infinite. She felt the life of a million lives lived. Fractions of a fraction of a fraction. That there could be so much to it. Sprawled out across the universe. Solemn in her cornea.

She blinked and then gazed down to see the sparkling jewel. Her fingers shaking and her heart in a rush.

‘Where is it going?’ she thought.

Her hand pressed on her chest.

With trembling hands and water welling in her eyes, she reached for that spellbinding jewel. Its light was dancing mesmerisingly. In her angst, she was unable to steady the many vibrating atoms coursing through her. She could feel every molecule of her being. As if she had been ripped apart into a billion pieces. Parts. Selves. Fractions of a fraction.

Every single event leading up to this moment and beyond was at her fingertips. And on the tip of her lips lay the key to a door.

In the light that crossed her eyes for a billionth time, she had seen. She had seen it all. Paradoxically, she was now in her past but in the future. Paradoxically, she had yet to make that decision to release her into her future.

The decision was hers to make. The consequences of which are to be seen beyond the dancing light of the jewel.

She could see a picture of herself holding the burglary proof of a window with the setting sun’s dying rays shading the room in amber. Her morning gown billowing to a coarse wind.

She blinked and looked away from it. And what she saw in front of her was herself. Now, then and to be. It would be a glorious moment, but what would she become after? Who would she become?

Solemn in his cornea.

“No, I can’t,” she said, then left.