Maybe Not

Whispers filled the giant room and echoed their incoherencies against the ridged, blue crystal walls, bouncing on the green tiled floor like rubber balls mocking gravity. The tiles reflected a white light bursting from the top of the domed room, a round hole in the center that surrounded the moving staircase, forever rising, lifting a parade of characters into the light.

At the base of the flowing stairs, two crystal piped sprouted from the tiles on either side, curving into arcs. The piped widened at the ends, spraying perpetual showers onto the tiles, then slipping into drains. Th shower east of the stairs had splashed out clear, tinted with a slight gray. West, each tiny stream from the pipe came out a different color. Scarlet, rose, tangerine, and sunshine, painting rainbow tiles.

The wall had no angles, but curved forever in a perpetual circle around the Whisper Room. Neither did that wall have any doors. No need for doors here. The transparencies soaked out of the aqua crystal like water through cloth, pink as babies, shifting like shadows.

They sweated the whispers, too many to understand. The wall would flash wildly at intervals, giving birth to the pink shadows. It had been flashing for ten years now.

On the third day of the tenth year, the wall flashed a sixth time, and Maybe emerged from the crystal. It had no eyes, but feverishly devoured the sights of the Whisper room, and listened to the cascade of whispers it spouted. The room was crowded with forms like Maybe's, but it immediately focused on the stairwell at the center, which swallowed the incredibly bright light in clear crystal.

Maybe knew it had to move to the showers. To bathe in the waters of its choice like the other Transparencies, to wear the flesh and bone required to ascend the stairwell. Longing for the light filled its form, and Maybe heard new whispers echo the desire.

The Transparency glided toward the showers, watching the characters as they stepped from the waters. Many shadows surrounded the Western pipe, giving off the loudest whispers in the room, but none ever moved under the shower. Maybe watched all of them soak themselves in the Eastern waters, emerging anew as people.

One came out as a beautiful little girl, eyes shining like the reflecting tiles. She fingered a red ribbon that hid her auburn hair, and touched her frilly yellow dress as she smiled. The girl walked to the stairs and slowly began to rise.

As Maybe reached halfway to the center of the massive hall, the walls flashed a seventh time. A transparency the color of a deeper rose emerged from Maybe's birthspot. Not glided faster than any other in the room, its whispers overlapping like autumn leaves fallen.

Maybe continued, unaware of the ghost behind him. It watched a procession of characters soak themselves in the Eastern showers, but Maybe was fascinated by the colors flowing from the Western pipe. The Transparencies shied away from the waters.

Following the girl, a gruesome fat man came from under the pipe. His eyes gleamed like a rat's, set deep in the pitted mound of his face. He wore a tight white T-shirt that tried to suffocate his girth. Pulling up his pants, he smiled as he rose on the stairs, revealing teeth as white as the light. His plump hand tightly grasped a bloody nightstick.

Several Transparencies bathed themselves in the Eastern waters, stepping out as a frowning old woman, a high-school teacher with breasts that were too big, a soldier clutching a phantom arm stolen in battle, a young woman holding a squealing baby in the crook of her arm.

Like the others, Maybe approached the crowd waiting for their chance to wash in the eastern showers, but must of its attention was focused on the rainbow at the other side of the staircase. Enveloped in the crowd, the whispers were loud, but Maybe heard something unusual in its own chorus.

Longing for the rainbow.

Maybe he tried to ignore the pleas, but the other Transparencies also heard its sounds, and the scattered as if Maybe were an intruder. It floated alone in the middle of the circle of Transparencies, watching them watching it.

Maybe noticed that one last Transparency had already stepped beneath the eastern pipe, oblivious to what was going on in the room. The gray showers passed through its pink form, water passing through mist, washing away the amorphous scattering, until a small human body appeared, becoming solid enough so the water splashed off the delicate shoulders.

Still as the whispers surrounding it, Maybe saw a little girl walk out of the waters. She was beautiful, with long blond hair. The girl nervously fingered a black ribbon in her hair; her other hand smoothed the frills on her red dress.

"Again . . . she is not another . . . she is again . . . face has already smiled twice . . . face has already been . . ." Maybe's whispers bombarded it with recognition. This was the first girl it saw come from the Eastern showers. ". . . to the rainbow . . . the colors give new face . . . a well for never seen . . . a well never disgraced"

Maybe backed away from the Eastern pipe. It was next to bathe there, but loathed becoming another fat man with dead rat's eyes. As it glided away from the Eastern crowd, coldness gripped its pink form, making the whispers it knew swell into shrieks.

Not had passed through Maybe, quick as wind, rushing to the Eastern waters. Maybe hurried away, frightened by Not's surrounding whispers.

". . . light is mine . . . mine to see . . . mine to swallow . . . next in line . . . quell the rainbow . . . "

By the time it reached the Western pipe, Maybe had forgotten about Not. Up close, the sparkling colors that fell made it almost resent the existence of the Eastern shower. A few Transparencies still beheld the incredible rainbow, but at a safe distance.

Maybe tried to identify the thousand strands of liquid color, but most were beyond what it had ever known or realized in its journey to the center of the room. It had to feel those waters, had to let the brilliance seep in.

Maybe stepped under the western pipe, and all its whispers rose in unison, reaching crescendos never touched before. The crystal walls shook as the lines of brilliance first passed through Maybe, then began to clarify something flickering at the center of its form.

The flickering became larger, and blossomed like a flower, taking on an emerald green. Maybe rejoiced as it began to feel the waters, and vaguely noticed hundreds of Transparencies circling around the Western pipe.

The emerald grew and grew, crystallized scales that gradually defined an enormous body, long muscular legs tipped with sharp, golden claws. Its neck stretched into a massive head and steaming snout. Maybe opened its violet eyes and saw the room as it had never imagined possible. It licked razor teeth with a crimson, forked tongue. Maybe was huddled under the pipe now, an incredible creature. The brilliance suddenly began splashing off its shoulders, and Maybe stepped forward, its clawed feet tap-tap-tapping on the tiles.

The whispers of the others rose in awe, frightened awe, as they backed away from Maybe. The new creature paid no heed, but felt the leathery skin that surrounded its body. Its arms were still wrapped in its shoulders, but Maybe spread them wide, and glorified in its shimmering wings.

Maybe was the dragon; he glorified in his wings. He stretched them and roared, staring up into the light beyond the huge hole in the dome. He would not ride the stairwell; he had no need. Dragon wanted to fly to the light.

Dragon began to beat his wings against the air, and almost reveled in the frightened whispers as he gradually rose off the tiles. His violet eyes only focused on the light streaming into the dome, and abandoned what happened on the ground.

He failed to see Not emerge from the Eastern showers. Not had become the fat man with rodent's eyes, this time wearing hunter's bright yellow. He carried a compound bow, with a silver arrow nocked, he ignored the stairwell, and walked over to the Western pipe.

Dragon rose faster and higher. The second little girl covered her eyes and trembled violently on the stairs.

Dragon didn't care. The light glimmered off his scales; he was sure the beyond had never seen his face before.

On the ground, the fat man stepped close to the Western showers, and carefully placed his silver arrow under a crimson stream. On contact, the metal flashed like lightning, matching the intensity of what poured down through the hole in the dome. As Dragon rose ever higher, the flash made his violet eyes blink, and he turned his massive head down towards the hunter on the tiles.

The yellow man pulled his nocked arrow from the red water, and the tip now glowed as crimson as the shower, pulsing like a heart ripped out of a baby's chest. He raised the arrow high, pointing it at Dragon. His mouth stretched down into a grimace, thin and white like an ancient scar.

The whispers beneath the dome rose in volume, threatening to stop whispering and start screeching.

Dragon beat his wings faster, almost there, his scales almost bathed in the light now. He roared at the hunter, shaking the crystal walls, but the fat man did not blink. He pulled back the bowstring, closed one eye, and released. The pulsing arrowhead tore at the air, flying directly for Dragon's side.

He roared again when the arrow pierced his boy, spouting blood, the color of a royal cloak. The little girl with blond hair was splashed with Dragon's life. She was almost on top of the stairwell, and shrieked until her face turned white.

The roar jumped around the room like an angry demon, and Dragon stopped beating his wings. He turned his eyes to the white light, whimpered, and stopped beating his wondrous wings.

The whispers were screeches now, and accompanied the roar like a bride. The fat man dropped his bow on the tiles. Covering his ears, he ran to the stairwell.

Dragon felt his heart give up, and he fell. His massive form crashed into the stairwell, killing the girl and crushing the entire structure, smashing into the tiles, which cracked underneath his bulk. His body pulverized both the Eastern and Western pipes, and their waters trickled up through the tiles, creating pools too shallow even to wade in. Dragon lay on his back on top of the hill of rubble, the blood mixing with the waters, his eyes perpetually staring and the light now out of reach.

The hunter leaped away from the ruins, and glared at the hole in the dome. It was too high; he did not have wings. The walls flashed again, and again, while the Transparencies gradually began to crowd the room.

The screeching transformed into long, overlapping wails. They circled around the yellow hunter. He was not a Transparency; he had no whispers. He looked at Dragon, then glanced at the light a last time.

He fell to his knees, ripped out his eyes, and crushed them in his palms.

The crystal walls flashed, gave birth again.

He had no whispers. The hunter opened his mouth and screamed.