imagination set about unnerving me in earnest: I swear it forced me to recollect a medical article I’d read years ago, never suspecting it would come back to haunt me. The subject of the article was epilepsy and, among other things, it stated that epileptics may experience seizures as a consequence of staring at flashes of brightness for too long, be they glares of sunlight on water or a strobe light’s flickers or a fire’s dancing flames. It’s as if visual suggestions of combustion are able to spark actual nervous combustion, bring about full-fledged neurological storms! is the phrase that my nefarious imagination placed in my thoughts. Not content with that, my imagination mercilessly added, The hissing in your ears and all else you’re experiencing is a warning! Your senses are absorbing more energy than is safe and, before too long, they might crumble under the pressure! Never mind that I’m not an epileptic and have never had a seizure in my life: no sooner did I dwell upon the phenomenon of brightness inducing seizures in epileptics than I became fearful of focusing upon the words in front of me, the black ink of which was making the white of the pages seem brighter and more sinister via contrast. Holding the book at arm’s length, as distant from my eyes as would allow the text to remain legible, and contriving to look at the words obliquely, with my head turned slightly to the side, was of no assistance: I began to imagine a jolt of bright light was on the point of slamming into my eyes with such force it would blur my vision, deprive me of my hearing, inundate my head with buzzing vibrations, set my spine ablaze, and propel me into a seizure. So convinced did I become a seizure was imminent that I dropped the book as if it had caught fire, sprang to my feet, and began frantically pacing from room to room of the mansion, dashing up and down the halls. While thus seeking to shake off my nervous excitement via physical activity I continued to dwell upon the nature of seizure-triggers despite myself and became all the more certain I was in danger of falling to the floor and foaming at the mouth.
“How stupidly naïve and hubristic I’ve been!” I recall thinking. “The way I’ve been reveling in my isolation, stoking my imagination with insomnia and too much reading—indulging in nonstop yearning, inducing vivid waking dreams! Now I find I’ve accumulated too much unspent energy and that the lack of an outlet for this energy is causing it to take matters into its own hands! Place a lid on a boiling pot and it’ll boil over! Why would it be different with people? A seizure will be the means by which my energy boils over!”
I exited the mansion firmly believing I could drop to the ground, thrash about and bite my tongue and scream incoherently, at any moment: it might be too late to reverse the progression of the seizure but I was going to do my best. It was approaching midnight and my intention was to spend the remainder of the night in the forest that bordered the sea approximately a half mile from the mansion: wild and unspoiled nature, as well as the sea-breeze, might soothe my nerves to the degree I’d be removed from harm’s way. Before reaching the forest, however, I came upon the town cemetery. Through a wrought iron archway I perceived hundreds of tombstones, many dating from the nineteenth century, among trees and shrubs on a gently ascending hillside. And then I found myself wondering, despite a tone of warning in the background of my feelings, how many beauties of those bygone days (when bright hopeful young people were settling and building the town, instead of exiting it to pursue their dreams elsewhere) lay in the graves before me. No sooner did this unfortunate idea occur to me than I found myself entering the cemetery and strolling among the tombstones, reading the names thereupon—something made possible by the evenly distributed lamps that suffused everything in ghostly amber light.
I distinctly recall I was alarmed at the manner in which I was preoccupying myself but that I didn’t feel I was in a position to alter my behavior, as reading the names on the tombstones was a reliable means of distraction from my greater fear of suffering a seizure. I wasn’t in the cemetery for long before I came to a stop before a tombstone that stood out from the others, on account of its greater size and elaborate detail of design, and read engraved thereupon: Clarissa Maye Nighting: the Sky Rains Tears at the Loss of Your Heaven-Mirroring Eyes. 1869-1896. How I wish I’d never happened upon those words! Because no sooner did I read them than I was fashioning an appealing version of the deceased Clarissa in my mind’s eye: fine-textured auburn hair, verging more on brown than red, flowing in rippling waves nearly to her waist; flawless tan complexion, as of someone who’s enamored of the sun and delights in swimming in the sea; petite and slender, but with a determined manner of carrying herself—pronounced verve in her stride—that made her seem six feet tall. Plus she was as light-footed and graceful as a cat: her stride, purposeful though it was, was a beautiful dance. She was both as carefree as a little girl and mature beyond her years: naturally disposed to blitheness, but with a strength of will and readiness of wit no one dared oppose. Her voice was of a force and depth that surprised anyone hearing it for the first time, as it didn’t appear to fit her petite frame; it easily carried across a crowded room and was always audible above the others, even though she never spoke louder than anyone else; it was predominantly earthy and direct, absent of overtly feminine—for lack of a better word, girly—modulation, but capable of softening at a moment’s notice to express great tenderness. And Clarissa’s eyes?—her, as stated upon the tombstone, heaven-mirroring eyes? They were her crowning glory: dark brown orbs flushed with the silver light of an ardent disposition—always as if on the point of communicating a precious secret that was just beyond the grasp of human understanding; always charged with upwellings of emotion that suggested something primal, untamed, and unendingly restless at the same time that they were incomparably sweet and serene, indicating she was fundamentally grounded in happy equanimity. Whenever she trained her eyes upon someone and smiled that person felt as if heaven was smiling upon them: her glance was a healing glance, which invariably lifted a depressed person towards joyful embrace of life.
Clarissa’s portrait crystallized in my mind’s eye instantaneously, in the amount of time it takes to blink, and there was no erasing it thereafter—no stopping it from banishing all else from my awareness, bringing about disturbing sensations in my heart. But who was I to complain? My fear of a seizure had departed—Clarissa had chased it away. I was no longer conscious of being in the cemetery—I’m not even positive I was conscious of being outside. All I saw were Clarissa’s dark silver-suffused eyes gazing into mine; all I heard was her breathy voice intoning affectionate words; all I felt was an urgent quickening of my blood in response to her gaze and intonation. Incredible as it may seem, the moment Clarissa’s picture leapt into my fancy I was overcome with an amount of sensory commotion no living woman had ever inspired in me: I was in thrall to a picture in my head that owed its existence to a name and epitaph on a tombstone.
I don’t recall returning to the mansion: my gaze was far too turned inward on Clarissa’s picture for me to be aware of walking, much less of alterations in my surroundings. My only confirmable recollections of the remainder of that night concern my fruitless attempts to sleep soundly after I found my way back to my bed. I was in great need of sleep, having been without it for over two days, but closing my eyes only caused Clarissa’s picture to shine with greater clarity, along with the wonder, fear, and stimulation she inspired. I’d turn onto my left side, flip onto my right side, attempt to sleep on my back: all to no avail. Did I really believe repositionings of my body were going to quench the fireworks in my veins? It had become blustery outside, as is often the case in seaside towns, and I’d opened the windows to allow the wind to whip about the room and cool and calm me but my nerves were still as agitated as my skin was slippery with sweat. The elements were unable to counter the combustion within me, stop my senses from flaring in response to Clarissa’s piercing eyes and beguiling voice.
Did I manage to obtain some sleep, even if it was assuredly not sound sleep? I have no idea. Clarissa’s picture was aglow on the same mental screen where dreams unfold, so how can I be expected to know if I
slept, since all I saw was Clarissa regardless of whether my eyes were open or shut? I dreamed of Clarissa unceasingly and these dreams shot hot electricity up and down my spine and whipped it to the top of my head and to the tips of my toes; on account of these dreams I was tense and ablaze with unspent energy in every discernable portion of my body, so that my muscles were literally in pain from the strain, and the situation was intensifying. I’d already been in a bad way before Clarissa took up residence in my imagination and churned up my feelings and now that she’d done so my uneasiness was increasing by leaps and bounds, effectively singeing my skin and ringing in my ears—causing me to detect echoes in the air, the suddenly deep and shadowy and menacing air, that were as unidentifiable as they were adept at disturbing me. I was beginning to fear that if I didn’t soon manage to reduce the amount of accumulation in the boiling pot of my need, hit upon a means of escape from my blazing body, I’d be in danger of being irreversibly separated from my