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I’m climbing beloved, answering your call.

In the atmosphere so thick, so star strewn, so vast, I climb.

Up the spiral staircase I ascend, answering your call.

Am I going up or down, I wonder, for which is which in space, in eternity? Clocks running backwards, songs sung in reverse, angels flickering around me wingless, sightless, silent.

Until I land, beloved, in this strange space.

On the floor a swirl of black and green I think is random, until I see. A map, beloved, of every planet, every constellation, ever dimension in all time and space. Beyond all time and space.

I am in a library, beloved, with the maps of the universe at my feet. And to my right shadowy bookshelves, lined with shadowy books. And in the strange spotlight beam are illuminated shadowy figures reading the books.

I am excited beloved and I call out your name. The shadows turn.

I suddenly realise I should not be here. It should not be possible that I came, on the wings of your call.

I should not be here at all.

And to speak your name here might be a form of blasphemy my beloved.

I feel their silent disapproval. I know it is not time for me to be here, not yet, not yet. I am a wilful child, up beyond my bedtime.

And in knowledge, suddenly, beloved, I fall. I fall down, down, past the staircase, past it all, into the shallow world below.

It was not time to know.

Not yet.

(c. ) Helen M Valentina