The Lotus On The Other Side Of The Universe

It is night, and the creature is standing in the yard.  The yard is ringed with spectral trees and funereal flowers. The air is thick, wet.  A vegetal perfume wafts through the air in the eddying breezes that languidly cross the space on an erratic schedule.  The creature does not seem to notice beyond a pushing out of the chest and a flaring of the nostrils.  Its back brain registers the scent of magnolia and lilac, rose and lavender.   It breathes and stares into the milk-spattered dome of the sky.

Above him in the black velvet dome lie a pointillist fantasy of diamond-hard stars, strewn about as from the hands of a forgetful god.  Faintly, galaxy and nebulae pinwheel through the ether.  The creature spies the dim smudges.  Its brow knits in concentration as a trace of a ghost of sliver of an idea forms in its overheating mind.  The gauzy light entrances and seduces the creature.  It feels something welling up in its heart. 

At that moment, almost dead center to the creature's field of vision, a supernova flares into life.  It blossoms in the sky, a slow-moving jellyfish in an ocean of air.  The creature gasped, falling to its knees in the grass.  The sensation on its heart grows stronger, making the creature cry out softly and clutch its chest.  The feeling spreads outward in warm, liquid waves.  The creature lies prostrate in the grass, marveling at the light in the sky.  It, too, has grown stronger and warmer.  The supernova continued to unfold, coalescing into a lotus blossom covering half the sky.  The creature gaped, and something resembling a smile broke out on its face.  It looked up at the lotus, and sang.

Centuries later, the creature put down its books, unbuttoned its collar, and wept to finally realize that the word he had been searching for all those years, to describe the light of which he had memory...was love.

Across the miles, a lotus awakes, setting in motion its destiny to unfold in the hearts ready to receive it.