Keyman’s Bluster
Somewhere between 12am and 2, near it was March 13th, calendar said 1722, or maybe 2022.
I’d had my interocular astral spyglass set up since sundown.
My family leather notepad sat in waiting for the night’s accounts of the phenomena Blue Star.
By candlelight I escape war as one of the few stirring light below the frozen evening’s sky.
My hardwood oak desk was in disrepair with years of notes and projects grading at its surface.
The deep flaky navy wallpaper came off inky black in the light’s residue.
I hone my lens to the ether and swallow the view finder with half a skull.
I saw a spotted canvas of naught with flakes of immateria like wallpaper tearing at the years.
My eye bulges and constricts with blood as it gauges to contain the glow of the Blue Star it caught.
I gulp a thousand calculations and attempts to pinpoint the anomaly to the shadow branch of Hades.
My soul is dancing in a neighbouring nebula right next to the Blue Star that calls it.
I tighten my nerve and reach to the nose of the solar stethoscope and wind the lens magnification.
My knuckle brushes something warm so I reach out and pluck at the oddity.
I pull away from the apparatus and a warm glow fills my fingertips as I clutch at the Blue Star.
Yet only an insignificant ethereal bead houses the wholly glow of the Blue Star.
My eyes pull from the miniature celestial giant and light echoes from the aqua marine wallpaper.
I see posters of monsters and men fighting for supremacy over 2022 in tight rectangles on the walls.
My desk has turned from forest carvings to reflective metal rods with a window to the universe on it.
The leatherbound notebook and ash-water inkwell have morphed to a shiny rectangle and ivory rod.
Where a fourposter bed once erected now sleeps a large pillow on stilts with seafoam coverings.
It’s daytime as I hold the star, yet night sprung only near not far.
Where was I by design?
Is this some cruel trick of the mind?
Is my baker’s spoilt germ to blame for this?
I best place the Blue Star back where it’s meant to be by design.
Take one thing away and the whole tower comes down.
I poke my noggin into the view hole and stretch my arm to hold the star in scope.
The room returns to its icy hues, and I can open my other eye.
I let go of the Blue Star and the room remerges in familiar shades of flaky ink.
I reach for my quill and pot and get to writing what I saw.
Not a lot changes, cept for the stars at night and the bed we make.
