Sensualist Dream

My fellow blogger Rob challenged some friends to write a paragraph with the title "Sensualist Dream", whatever we thought it should be. Here's my submission.

Curled up in my bed, comforter wrapped around me, I gradually become conscious of the world. I can hear rain on the roof and sense the light of the muted sky. I am curled up, wrapped around my blanket and my blanket is wrapped around me. The walls are insubstantial, they are only half there. Now only a third, now a quarter. Soon I will forget there were walls at all. I am a cloud, floating on the sea, drifting away. I notice delicate conformational changes in my cloud. Finely tuned responses to invisible forces around me, my form moves in perfect concert with my environment. A passing bird wouldn't suspect my cloud as anything but ordinary. My cloud begins to take interpretive liberties with its reciprocation, flowing more and more freely, assuming wilder and wilder forms. Maybe a giraffe, now a ballerina, now a simple, beautiful girl. Her very curves caress and embrace me wholly. I linger on that moment. The pattering rain reminds me of the preciousness of every moment. I think of the dew-cool land stretching out in all directions. I think of the hills near the bay, green with rain, rolling endlessly, hiding oaks in their seams, and the blessed inhabitants of that Eden, the fluffy sheep. The fluffy sheep don't believe in time. I don't either. The fluffy sheep bah in unison, at first very quietly, but with increasing volume until it feels as if the entire world has joined in. The fluffy sheep have crowned me king. King of the dew-cool grass, king of the sky, king of the hills and of the oaks hidden in their seams. King of all things conceived, king of all the worlds pulsing, exhuding, emanating from my cloud. My clouds' wisps are fractals. Worlds within worlds, thoughts within thoughts, my realm is bounded cozily by infinity. I take to tracing the outline of my realm. The vast expanse yawns ahead of my walking figure. My pace quickens. Faster and faster, until I am rushing with my thoughts sprawling rampant alongside me, like a stampede of animals fleeing wildfire, the desperate glint of animal fear in all their eyes. Squirrels, rabbits, deer and bears alongside each other, fur flying, trampling each other, the desperate agony of flight overshadowed only by the threat of fiery death. Outlines of some animals blur into phantom streaks of outreaching terror, others burst into flame, flying like torches through the night. I can hear the torchlight like a million needles, like grim laughter. Hopelessness grips me and my will falters. I allow the wildfire to overtake me. Like a wave, it overtakes me all at once. Yet, it does not burn. The flames licking my flesh are pleasantly warm. I lean back into the feeling. The flames lick over all my body. I close my eyes and withdraw into my mind, searching for patterns in the sensation. The heat intensifies gradually, almost imperceptibly, to a pleasant burn, then hotter. Pleasure begins to flicker back and forth with pain, but still the heat grows. I fight to keep my attention on the good in the feeling, but the intensity makes my task increasingly difficult. I can only perceive the heat as pain. Barely tolerable, my skin begins to sear. Every nerve ending in my body screams with pain. My mind's order begins to break down and writhe. My mind joins in screaming chorus with my skin. My muscles capitulate soon after, thrashing against the unbearable scorch. Then, just as suddenly as that wave of wildfire had overtaken me, the inferno vanishes, leaving all but the vestigial glow of heat on skin. Like a sunburn, I feel all my skin radiate heat off, to my blanket, and reflect back onto my skin. I bask in my oven of afterglow, pondering life's caprice.