What you make of it

© Oonah V Joslin

Strange how that there was no auger of doom about it - rather, a calm inevitability, a kind of sinking down - a settling of the body, freeing the senses.

Chocolate. The smell of it, its velvet texture, filled her consciousness but through no intermediary - no sensory cells, no nasal membrane. The darkness encapsulated its richness. It could even be heard as a slow, low, gloopy, comforting tone mingled with frequencies high in the range like music all but inaudible, promising light.

So this was heaven. But surely heaven would be filled with light, not merely this tantalizing potential, and with music striking enough to invigorate the soul?

Sandrine floated. The faces and places of the past were gone. This space was personal - so personal she felt she had always been there. Sandrine swam, she thought of it as swimming, over to one wall. It was flawless and without perceptible temperature. Sampling its flavour, it was chocolate of the type that is bitter but with a hint of warmth like - chillies no, clove no, coriander. It was uncommon but not unpleasant. The walls arose smooth as glass and curved inwards towards apex and base so that they formed a domed ceiling with a wider space at the bottom but always arced. She began to search for a seam or opening, an exit of some kind. There was none. She was entombed in chocolate and yet had no craving to eat.

So this was Hell, then.

How many layers of chocolate were between her and… anywhere else , she wondered? And did a worse fate await her outside of her egg? The realization that she was inside an egg renewed her hope - that being the essence of an egg. She lacked nothing - needed nothing at all.

So this was neither Heaven nor Hell. It was what you made of it.

Sandrine began to peck at the chocolate. There was a thing she was hungry for, something she needed. Someday she would break through that shell and find whatever was out there - beyond. It was her future and she meant to claim it.