I sat on the ribbed surface of a couch, leaning back on the tired, subsiding pillows. My seven year-old self lightly held a musty Junie B. Jones book on my palms, gazing at its pages. Utterly engrossed in the story, I let the rest of the world fade into nothingness, blocking out all sounds around me into a buzzing hum. I turned the pages obsessively, binding myself within the confines of the thick cardboard cover and gulping down the words in a fevered excitement. Faintly, as if from a great distance, I heard my mom’s ringing voice calling for me. However, my hands felt glued to the pages of the book, my eyes fixed on the precise curves of the identical black lettering. I sat unmoving. Minutes turned into hours, and as time swept calmly past, reaching farther and farther away from me, I became lost to the rest of the world.  

The piercing screech of the sliding door as it suddenly opened made me jump, and I looked around me, slightly disoriented. The smudged glass door was open, and a flood of radiant sunlight swept into the room through the fine black netting of the screen. Dazed dust motes hovered in the beams of light. Putting down my book for a moment, I walked over to the door, gazing at the grainy specks of shimmering light in surprised wonder. Sinking down onto the silky cream sofa beside the door, I watched the dust particles slowly move in tranquil silence, content to float around aimlessly in the warm air.

Fascinated by the sparkling particles, I watched them vibrate to their own eerie melody, seeming to defy gravity by hovering timidly in the air. They floated to the rhythm of the modulating waves of light, rising or sinking at every shift in the sunlight’s direction. The fine particles flickered and intensified randomly, gleaming with an ethereal beauty. I extended my hand forward into the warm light, hoping to capture these otherworldly particles. When I was sure my hand was directly below several of them, I clenched my fingers together, digging my nails into my palms. But when I unclenched my fingers, disappointment filled me, as I saw no specks of dust lying on my palm. The fragments of dust had escaped my tight grasp, slipping away through the cracks between my fingers.

I sat watching the particles’ velvety movements in the confined mystical space of light that seemed to hold another dimension. Time seemed to slow into a languid crawl, and everything seemed suspended in an invisible fluid. The silky tranquility of the particles’ movements filled me with awe. I marveled at how a ray of sunlight might unveil the true nature of the heavenly dust beneath it and remove the shadowy coverings around the room that had concealed these fragments.

A year later, I sat on the flowery surface of a dining room chair, sinking into its frayed seat. Light filtered in from the murky window, illuminating the shadowy room with an effervescent morning glow. I held a metal fork between my fingers, scraping it fiercely against the sides of my plate, as a thin clanging noise resounded in the room. A stony piece of toast sat wearily on my plate. I sat still, staring at my bleak food with revulsion, my nostrils pinching together.

A clock set on the wall behind me ticked maddeningly, its crisp beats filling up my hearing and making my eyes close drowsily. I yawned heavily, letting out a pungent breath. Suddenly, I felt warm light against my eyelids, and I opened them slowly to see a penetrating beam of light directed toward my eyes, making me squint. A ray of lustrous sunlight now shone over me, casting an incandescent glow over my face and my plate. Fragments of dust hung mesmerized within the sunlight, beaming as if luminous snowflakes. They floated over the toast, seeming to transform it into a sidereal object.

The toast glistened, seeming to quiver in a frenzied excitement, as the dust particles floated around its thick crust. It gleamed as though varnished, its polished surface reflecting the beams of light perfectly. Dust particles spiraled around it in a dizzying excitement to form a halo. I watched, enraptured by the vitality of the specks of dust and their transcendent swaying. They swirled around my plate, enveloping the food in a sphere of light. I gazed at my plate, enthralled by this fantasy of heavenly fragments of light floating around me.

Years later, when I was twelve years old, I lay stretched out on a deep red sofa by the sliding glass door, sluggishly watching dust motes hanging in a large triangle of light shining on the teak floorboards. I blinked quickly, my long black eyelashes flickering in front of my eyes and contributing to the grainy perception of the dust motes vibrating in front of me. Staring at the dust particles’ relaxed changes of movement and effortless turns, I smiled at their tranquility of motion. They allowed the shifting of the sunlight to guide their path, submissive to its wishes.

I followed the trail of one dust mote, watching it slide and soar, dipping ever so slightly and then rising up unexpectedly. However, it started to lose momentum, drifting hopelessly downward and then taking a final plunge onto the jarring floorboards. There it lay, a faint speck of dust barely visible among the lines on the wood, limply staying in place as its body curled inward, fading further within itself. The sunlight suddenly shifted as shadows engulfed the piece of dust, which utterly vanished within the blackness.

I lifted my hand toward the particles of dust calmly flying through the sunlight. I watched as my hand was immersed in a pure light, as the dust gently parted to make way for it. I watched as the dust particles all seemed to be drifting in a gradual downward spiral. Every dust fragment was tumbling softly, graciously accepting their doomed fate. Their wispy fineness and graceful movements were ultimately not enough to halt the chains of darkness that would eventually sweep over all of them, leaving them to forever lie in the devouring shadows.