Belly, the conclusion

[Well, this is it. The final piece of my puzzling Belly. I'll do some clean up and perhaps some re-ordering and then post the final version on my website. Thanks to all of you who stuck it out with me until the end. Once again, if you'd like to start at the beginning, please click here.]

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“Have you taken the medication I prescribed for you?”

“No, but I don’t think I’ll need it.”

*****

And some amount of time will pass, but he won't know exactly how much. But he will know. He'll know. He'll know it's the morning. It's the morning everything changes.

*****

Jonas, are you alright?

*****

And he’ll be on the train again. And it will move through the black as it always has, morning after morning, but this morning won't be the same. This morning, it won't be the same, the same routine. This morning won't track smoothly along his timeline. This morning will jump the tracks. On this morning, he’ll find a different kind of black within him. And the voices won’t come there, only colors will. And he knows his color now. He can’t name it, but he can describe it to himself. A sunburst orange. The orange of a sun bursting free from the horizon. And he’ll become that color when he closes his eyes and enters that black, the black so different from what he sees outside. And when he opens his eyes again, he won’t see black, or the others, or even a train. He won't be on a train, and it will be a different morning.

*****

Jonas? You missed our appointment today. Call me back when you can, to reschedule. And please take those meds.

*****

And when he does, open his eyes, the special black is replaced with a startling, but equally special white. The white of an empty room, a freshly painted room. The white of a new start. The white not of refusal, but of belonging. And he will occupy this room with the other colors. They're not here in the room, but they're here with him, or in him. And he won’t put anything in it, this empty room, but a single spider plant hung from the ceiling, to keep him company with its parachuting, miniature green offspring. And he'll also put there a single book, leather-bound, with blank, vellum pages. He'll lay it at his feet with a fountain pen, to write in and with, when the words come, if they ever come. They’ll have to come, but he won’t know when exactly they come, because he won’t keep any clocks. He'll keep time by counting the times his spider plant flowers. And then he’ll write. And then he’ll write. And then he'll write some more, his pen moving like the cycling of those flowerings. And when he’s done writing, whenever that will be, he’ll let the book go, wherever it is books go, and he’ll go with it. And they'll go together to speak to others. And they'll leave only the spider plant behind, because there will be nothing else to leave. And then a new story will begin.

*****

Is it time for another first question?

Yes, and I’ve got a good feeling this time. She won’t disappoint us.

Not like the last time? Not like Jonas?

No, not like Jonas.