Dreamings

I woke up one morning with the first line repeating itself in my head until I finally gave up and gave it context

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"If you do not open your Eyes," he said, "the sun will never rise again."

She flounced and pouted, resolutely keeping her eyes shut tight against the glare of the fire and the intensity of his gaze. He stroked her cheek softly, murmuring words of comfort, and her body betrayed her by relaxing in the face of his ministrations. She opened her eyes a crack and looked at him, the harsh angles and lines of his face creating deep shadows. If she actually Looked, she knew she'd see the shadows crawling with living energy, swirling over his skin, acting, interacting, and reacting. Looking would require opening her Eyes, however, so she stayed content with simply watching the play of light and shadow.

"Look," she replied, squinting at him through her eyelashes, "the sun will rise either way. It's scientific fact. It's astronomical." She opened her eyes fully and stared at the sky, speckled with scatterings of starlight, losing herself for a moment in the glow of the moon. She sat up quickly and dug her hands into the earth beneath her, shrugging him off as he reached out to touch her, fingertips aching to feel the pull, the life, the Joy.

He dropped his hands into his lap and smiled at her, nonplussed. "Of course that will happen, silly girl," he laughed softly, "a sphere of flaming gas and kinetic energy that holds nine chunks of dead rock in its thrall of gravity." He pulled her hand out of the dirt and examined it, watching her fingers twitch, dark loam embedded beneath her fingernails. "It is astronomical. This dead chunk of rock you sit on..."

She snatched her hand back and scowled. "You know better than that," she said, nearly spitting the words at him, "even with my Eyes closed I can feel it thrumming with Life." He laughed and called her stubborn, and, rebelling, she rolled her eyes and rose, dancing to the opposite side of the fire. She raised her face to the sky, stretching her arms out, dirty fingertips flexed. "The trees breathe and lean into me... The stars sing... The ground beneath my feet is like a caress.." She dropped her arms and sighed when she noticed him watching her with a satisfied smirk.

"If you do not open your Eyes, the sun will never rise again. The magic will sputter, it will BECOME astronomical. The world will be lit by a flaming ball of gas, primal urges explained away by science." He rose and crept gently to her, entwining his fingers with hers. "Open your Eyes, child, so that the world might see Beauty."

She laughed softly and surrendered the argument, as she did every night, grasping his fingers, letting down the walls, and Seeing. Her Eyes opened a crack, then another, until she Stared, Watched the Earth take a breath, Watched the trees shudder with Joy, serenaded by the starlight. She Blinked...

...and the first rays of sunlight played gently on the horizon.