Silver cords

It was floating in the air, or what he thought was the air. Nepal latched onto the drifting silver cord. He tugged on it hard. He drifted along with the cord, thinking he was pulling something closer. He was immersed in the emptiness that wasn't space, weightless. Was he pulling something closer or was he pulling himself closer. He decided it didn't matter. It would turn out the same in the end.

Something tugged back on the cord, and he tried to brace himself. Brace on what? Nothing here to brace with.

There must have been miles of cord, for it reached well beyond the darkness. Hand over hand he gripped the silver line and pulled closer to something unknown. Steadily pulling himself for what must have been an hour, he saw in the distance the cord had split off in three directions.

There was that tugging again. This time stronger then before. The split in the cord shook and divided. Two new cords streamed out from the center of their crossing. He felt his grip on the cord start to give a little. He redoubled his effort and pulled himself faster along the length of the cord.

He reached the nexus of silver cords just in time. The cord he was on winked out of existence. At once he realized it meant that someone in his line had died. His line? His line of what?

There were 4 cords meeting at this crossroads of what? Life lines? Nepal was sure he could take any one of these cords and find family members. “These are my family?” He questioned? His family, except for his father, as far as he knew were all gone. His mother died in a car crash when he was fourteen. But it wasn't his fathers line. It was the family on his mother's side. This was their family lines.

He felt the twinge of sorrow of for the loss. His mother was so gentle, full of energy. She was non-stop his “Mom”. She was always doing something. In fact, he never knew her to sleep. Ever.

This thought struck him like never before. Maybe she did sleep, but just never around him. He examined nexus, bringing his eyes level with it. He could almost see someone etched into its side.

Another cord drifted nearby. It was a short cord, getting shorter by the moment. I whipped back and forth, a though it was writhing in pain. He leaped for it, and for all his effort, he only managed to fall feather slow toward the ever shrinking cord.

However, as he got closer to the cord, he could tell the shrinking was an illusion. It was also not just one silver band of threads, but a pair of cords twisting in unison.

He grabbed them both steadied them as best he could. The cords resisted and whipped about furiously. He wrapped himself around the two cords and attempted to straighten them with his entire body. “There, that's better.” The cords settled and began to stretch off in both directions. One cord slipped from his grip, as the other widened. He held on for as long as he could, but the widening cord broadened well beyond with width of his outstretched arms. Instead of falling off the growing cord, he fell into it.