Golden Shadows

I am standing in the center of an elegant room, with walls that are perfectly white, dressed up with beautiful old paintings - portraits of angels and gods. 

I’m not sure how I got here.

I look out the window and see the sun rising over the sea, bathing my face and body in warm light. The morning breeze blows in through the window, lifting the silky curtain softly in the air. All I can hear are the waves on the ocean. Everything is in slow motion. 

and for a moment

the wind stops blowing 

the world stops spinning

everything pauses, but me 

my heart beats onward, my breath flows in and out, I can step and spin and move about

in complete stillness

complete silence

I am the only movement,

the only variable.

everything else glued in place 

Until suddenly, liquid gold starts oozing from the walls, out of every crack and crevice, slowly dripping down to the floor.

It is strange and beautiful 

to see the curtain hanging in midair, the ocean still and steady. All I can hear in the vacuum of silence is the slow drip, viscous metallic liquid oozing down the walls.

As it reaches the floor, it all runs slowly to to me, in the middle of the room, the center of it all.

The drips form into a puddle at my feet,

shaped just like me, interacting with me. 

My golden shadow

I dance and play with her a while, she follows me wherever I go. Liquid gold.

And slowly, as if the sun was moving to the center of the sky at noon, the shadow shrinks smaller and smaller, until it disappears beneath my feet.

She and I become one. 

As I take my next breath the world starts to spin again, the wind blows, the birds sing, the stillness no longer a factor.

I look around the room, and see no evidence of those golden drips. 

Until I take a step forward and I realize 

Now and forever, 

I leave little golden footprints

wherever I go.