she wrote and wrote

She wrote and she wrote. They sat and watched. Other than the scratching of quill on paper, there was absolute silence. Stars twinkled in the galaxy. They could now see through the room, or were those the walls of the room that were made to look like the outside. Did it matter? Not really. Didn’t matter to either of them. They were both occupied with other things. It might have mattered to her. They were both looking at her, as tears, sparkling like the stars, fell from her eyes. They were confused. Both of them knew what tears were. But they thought all three of them did not have the capacity for such emotion. Apparently they were wrong. Apparently she did. Unless this was something new. Only she would know the answer to that. She understood the creatures in the universe and she understood feelings. One of them understood the particles that made up the universe. And those particles did not have feelings. Not like this. They were based on simple rules. Life forms were based on complex rules. Atoms went where they would, where they would. A semblance of free will, but still guided by the laws that bound them. Life forms had free will. They were not bound to anything. They could rage one moment, laugh the next, and cry the third. The other understood time. Time was splayed out. All together. Circular. Not linear. Parallel. Not linear. Time did not have any of those tricky, complicated emotions either. It was bound to rules. It was bound never to step out of its path. She wrote and she wrote. Tears falling from her cheeks. Hair a curtain around her face. They sat and watched. The space around them was silent. Stars twinkled. They were confused. Both of them were. She seemed to be in pain. She looked up, pursed her lips, looked at them, then thought better of it. Her hand shook, hesitation making it make mistakes. The scratching of the quill stopped. The silence was deafening.

She stopped. Looked straight at them. Then past them. Through them. Searing. They each felt something, one in his heart, the other in his groin. Burning. Sizzling. They opened their mouths. Screaming in silence. Outside, fires broke out, volcanoes erupted, seas boiled, winds turned into raging hurricanes, skies burst open into flooding rains, lightning cackling as it sizzled through the air. Then it was over. Their pain stopped, just as quickly as it had begun. If they needed to breathe, they would be gasping for breath right now. As it was, something else happened. For the first time in their existence, the two felt fear. Pure. Unadulterated. Just fear. And it was terrifying. She had her head bent over her parchment, hair like a curtain around it and she was writing in silence, as if nothing had happened. The quill scratched loudly. Everything else was silence. The stars twinkled outside. They looked at one another, and as if in agreement, they rose.