Eyes like Crystal Diamonds

[excerpt from Lucas Black: a novel]

Lucas opened his eyes once more and was intensely blinded by the perfect illumination of snow-covered mountain peaks blazing underneath the high noon sun. He was standing at the very summit of the highest pinnacle, on the tallest sierra of the Earth. His lungs flung wide open to extract the purest air imaginable to mortal creatures, and they were replenished in full, as if he had never been short of breath a single moment in his life. And he breathed, and he smiled.

There’s my boy…

Lucas turned around to see who was speaking to him. He saw an old man with a bright, luminescent face. His eyes were a crystal, unworldly blue and sparkled in the light, like diamonds. He was wearing a white hooded cloak, held together at the waist by a single knotted rope, and in his right hand was a long wooden staff. He pulled the hood off his head to give Lucas a better glimpse of his face, but somehow this action caused the splendor to intensify… so that it felt like staring directly into the sun. Yet after some time, his face came back into focus, a beautifully familiar face. And the man spoke,

You know, there’s not too many people that ever get a chance to view it from up here.

View “it,” sir?

Yes, that vast blue and white globe called “Earth.” Who ever came up with “earth,” I do not know… you’d think they could have mustered a slightly more imaginative name for the bubble that holds your reality together.

May I ask, sir. What are we doing here… where have I been? It feels like I have lost track of time… I don’t know where I have been, for how long, or how I got there.

Let me give you a simpler answer my boy, “none of that matters now. It’s all gone, now.”

It’s all gone? What could you mean by this?

You’re here now, my boy. Nothing else matters.

May I, sir? It’s about a girl… her name is Raven. Is she alright?

Oh, Raven’s seen better days… but she’s tough. She’ll pull through.

Need I ask, sir?

You may.

Am I dead? Have I died?

Depends on who you ask.

I’m asking you.