The Grain of the Wood
Grab the edge of the ledge with your hands and hoist yourself up. Swing your legs and bend you arms - propel yourself into the void.
A divot in the wood is your domain. The sun's light doesn't reach here because it doesn't notice the crack - it spreads its rays evenly across the varnished surface. No drops of gold enter the crevice. Instead they settle along the veneer top, illuminating the warm brown and bronze shades, caressing the smooth grain.
But you - you know the valleys and the mountains, the stark silhouette of the cliff against the sky. You hide in these lost and broken places.
Hollowed out by a burrowing insect perhaps, or a small object falling, chipping what was previously unmarred. This depression is but a space interrupting the solidness around it. Air where once air could not exist.
Although this place does not know the sun, a soft heat rises from the ground, brought into being by the trembling of atoms. Sometimes you think you can feel them shaking.
The warmth presses into you with a steady insistence, reminding you of your own presence. Your feet place themselves carefully in front of each other, toes gripping the gentle slope in order that you do not slip away.
Finally you encounter the spot you were looking for. Inside this crack there is another crack, a niche made, it seems, especially for you. Fitting you perfectly. You lay down and begin to relax, folding your arms beneath your head and crossing your ankles. Look up. Can you see the stars?
Everywhere around you is dark brown, and almost black. A slight breeze tousles your hair. The sunlight has withdrawn and left you alone, in your little hollow in the wood. Minuscule, unable to be seen. But no one's looking anyways.
No one looks at the smooth surface of a mahogany table where you reside, abandoned at the edge of a bleak desert. The sky's blue is deepening.
There is only you. I ask again - can you see the stars?