short fiction · 2026-10-30

The Prism's Question

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

The prism sits on the windowsill, a triangle of glass catching morning. White light enters, reluctant, and leaves in seven directions — red bending least, violet most, each color convinced of its own separateness. The carpet wears the spectrum like a bruise: bands of hue laid flat across wool, no white between them. If you press your palm to the red stripe, warmth. The violet stripe, cool. The prism does not answer the question it poses: whether the light was ever truly one thing, or whether unity is only what we call the moment before separation. The sun climbs. The bands shrink, sharpen, vanish.