The Sun slowly ran its slender fingers over my face.

I knew it to be truth, for no one can touch one’s face like the ethereal goddess can. Her fingers hold so much. So much life lies in her palm, yet she still can manage to press tips to my cheek and forehead. All without casualty. All with the love of a mother and a lover. Strong and tender intertwined.

I lift an eyelid to peer out the window, smiling at the welcomed embraced betrothed to me by an object of my passions. Behind the glass of my room was a garden. Not just a garden like those of any mortal understanding, but one of radiant tree and uranium flowers covered in the loveliest of insects. All scrambling and clittering and clattering their chiton as they frolic under the warmest gods. The ground moved with life as beings beyond measure moved outside our ability to comprehend. Such exquisite beings lived in the garden of elemental flora and creeping metal vines.

My smile glowed around the room and bounced off every beautiful white surface and every metal tool. To my right, which is where my writing hand is, were robots of great wonder! Such fabulous beings beeping and booping in delight to see me awake again at last! Marvelous monsters, robots are. So filled with empty being and yet so hollow with all their gears and bolts and screws. I never judge them. They were like any of us as they scrambled in the halls with notepads and equipment. They had work to do like any human being. Don’t they deserve the same respect for a good job?

One mechanical man turned to me. “At last I can sleep. Thank you for taking up the post.”

I nodded as the young one shut its eyes and was left to dream. It was important to get some sleep, and now that I was awake in my bed so warm and white I no longer needed his watchful eye. I wonder what his dreams are. Oh how I wish I could slip inside his mind and watch as neurons fire in pleasure and pain at all a robots life played in celluloid.

My eyes snap to the corner at the chair that was empty. Was. No more. Now full. Filled with human and instrument. Where did it come from? I was staring towards the door and not a soul came in. I was sure of it. I knew it to be true like the Sun touching me without glancing. So how?

The harp was playing me its song as I watched the lady in the chair. She flickered and fluttered like a moving picture, but held all physical resemblance to reality. I could see the roundness of her slender arms and the wind from an open window worlds away moving her black and white hair. I could see her sparkling black eyes as she moved her fingers along the harp, but I know for a fact that it is a farce. That beautiful instrument of ivory and wonder needed no controller. It only needed a reason and a will. It had both sitting in my stately room. And so it played. Lush and thriving were the notes that angels came from galaxies away to learn and to revel in as it taught its grand lessons based so deeply in the markings of its body. So intricate was the design I understood with solemn heart that I would never decipher its rounded tome.

The lady was looking into my soul as my eyes met hers. She needed no corporeal road to travel, for she saw all. All great and all wretched was her knowledge. Her flickering struck my eyes with stars and she was next to me. I stared up at her and became coldly aware that I was cut off from my goddess and my flowers and my creatures.

Fight! I have to fight my bindings! Please this woman will surly kill me please!

“Hush now.” Boomed such a deafening sound as she whispered in my bleeding ear and pressed a cold flickering finger to my trembling lips. “You will be with Her again. Don’t you fret.”

But why? I pondered feverishly as the harp slid closer to my bed. Why take away my peace with your demented presence? Can’t I just lie here in my warm bed with my goddess and my creatures and my robots? And why is this harp still playing such a lovely loving song?

“All will become clear.” Her smile was as cold as Europa’s warmest day and as sharp as it’s terrain. “We all have our duties. We all fall down. We all fade to ether. And it is my love for you, dear Wanderer, that will put you there.”

Free me! Free me from these straps and chains! Please! I want my Sun back!

My pillow fell out from behind my head and all went dark and hot.