Light

In the kitchen, my mind clears in the light. There is a single naked bulb above my head, strings of sticky fly-traps coiling down from its screws, but its light is a weak and ineffective thing. No, there is light pouring in like a river from windows placed perpendicularly at this end of the house. They are portals. When the Sun rises as it does now, its rays rain refracted from one but crowns boldly at the other.

It is an assault of heat and light that makes my eyes scream and my brain to exhale like an amorphous creature slumbering in a dark, liquid, cave. But my skin exalts at the ecstasy of the Sun’s heat, and warmth spreads all throughout my body, clearing the cobwebs of my mind.

I can think straight. I can see the way sunlight plays on the walls; it’s strains and strands filtering through the window bars; the patterns on the fridge; and the silver plate piled with cereal.

For a moment, I am entranced with how the milk shines back in its glow.

I am filled with sunlight and milk and cereal and I do not want to move. But then, the moment is broken by a voice, and I put my plate away.

-- Ikè Nwankpa