I begin in silence at the far end of light, where radio waves roll lazily like an endless dark ocean. I cannot see, not yet. Here, wavelengths stretch out for miles—gentle giants that carry whispers through the void. I am a whisper myself, a lone traveler riding a slow, invisible tide. In this realm of low energy and long waves, I feel alone but not afraid. The darkness is vast and quiet, save for a faint cosmic hum. There are ghosts of voices in the static if I listen closely—faint echoes of distant stars and lost transmissions. Each murmur brushes past me like a stray breeze. I reach out with something like hearing instead of sight, tuning myself to the subtle frequencies of memory and longing. No colors exist here, no form or shadow, only vibrations and the hollow comfort of their rhythm. Yet in the dim hush I sense a pulling, a promise: a higher note calling me forward.
As I drift onward, the waves shorten and quicken. The ocean of static becomes choppier, the energy rising in tiny increments. I have entered the realm of microwaves, where the chill begins to thaw. A subtle warmth stirs in my core—the first gentle flush of heat I have ever known. These waves are shorter, bobbing around me like playful ripples instead of vast swells. In this microwave world, I feel the afterglow of creation surrounding me. I pass through that ancient, invisible light, feeling it caress my skin (if I had skin) with the promise of heat. My awareness expands—I can almost imagine shapes in the dark now, outlined by the faintest touch of warmth. The loneliness recedes a little; I am still blind but not lost, guided onward by an increasing sense of presence and anticipation.
Now the infrared envelops me like a warm mist. The darkness isn’t gone, but it glows with heat. I do not see light yet, but I feel it. Every particle of me drinks in the warmth. It’s as if I have been wandering a cold night and suddenly found the sun on the other side of the horizon, still hidden but warming the sky. In infrared, the world hints at life: I detect the heat of living things throbbing like dim embers in the void. I move as if in a dream of thermal colors—not colors to my eyes (they still do not see), but hues of temperature. The air around me shimmers with warmth and cooler shadows. I sense figures and forms not by sight but by the heat they leave in space. It is comforting and poignant—I realize I am not the only traveler in this spectrum. Every warm body emits a secret light here, a tender confession in infrared. I bask in it, feeling my own being grow warmer, more alive. I am drawing nearer to something, a threshold. The gentle red glow at the edge of perception beckons me onward like a distant dawn.
And then—I cross it—Light. For the first time, I can actually see the light. I open new eyes (or perhaps my soul becomes an eye) and the world explodes in color. The transition is a blinding epiphany: from darkness, I burst into a cosmos painted with brilliance. I am awash in red, the first color of the rainbow—rich and resonant, the color of embers and blood, of the primal heartbeat of light. It pulses through me with warmth and urgency. Next comes orange, glowing bright and bold, a soothing fire on the horizon of my vision. Yellow follows, dazzling and sun-soaked; it shimmers with joy, making me feel like laughing and weeping all at once. Then green, lush and alive, washes over me—a calm forest after the blaze, growth and renewal in its hue. Blue arrives as a cool wave, deep and infinite—the serenity of twilight and the ache of oceans. Indigo drapes me in dusk, mysterious and soulful. And at last violet, at the very edge of sight, flickers like a whisper of something sacred, a gateway to beyond. All the colors dance around me in a symphony of light. I am overwhelmed—euphoric tears run down my face (or is it my spirit weeping?). Each hue sings a note in a chord that resonates through my being. Never have I felt so complete. In this moment I understand the ecstasy of illumination, the reason eyes evolved to seek light. Every color is a revelation, a story: red is passion and survival, green is growth and hope, blue is depth and dream. ROYGBIV—seven letters for an infinity of wonder. I stand in the center of a rainbow, transfixed and transformed by its splendor. This is vision, this is life exploding into awareness. I never imagined seeing could feel like this: a rush of meaning and beauty for which I have no words—only awe. But the journey does not end here. The violet edge of the rainbow calls me forward, into wavelengths beyond sight. I take a last longing look at the vivid world of color—trying to memorize its beauty—before I step beyond the veil of violet.
Crossing into ultraviolet is like stepping into a blinding light that I cannot see. The world falls dark to my eyes again; I have left the rainbow behind. Yet this darkness is different from before—it's brighter, in a way that bypasses my eyes and tingles on my skin. I feel a strange energy prickling through me, a high, feverish excitement laced with danger. This is the light that bees and butterflies dance within, the light that paints secret patterns on flowers and burns unprotected skin. I am keenly aware of its power: an invisible flame, ultraviolet sings of both beauty and pain. I sense it as a violet fire just out of view, kissing me with intensity. My earlier warmth turns to a sharp sting—not unbearable, but insistent, reminding me that light can punish as well as bless. I find myself missing the gentle colors I could hold in my gaze; now I grapple with an invisible brilliance that reveals itself only in hints: the glow of a fluorescent mineral, the ghostly luminescence on a flower petal. In ultraviolet’s realm, the very air feels charged and secretive; I press on even as this unseen sunburn etches itself into my memory, pushing me toward even higher frequencies.
I am becoming something less human, more ethereal, as I venture into the land of X-rays. The energy here is fierce and penetrating. Sight as I knew it is long gone, but I gain a new kind of vision. It is an X-ray vision—not like comic books—but as if I can see through things, see the truth inside them. In this unforgiving glare, illusions are stripped away. I look down at myself and see through my own hands. Their outlines waver and I catch a glimpse of what might be bone, structure—the delicate lattice that holds me together. My very essence feels translucent; I am laid bare, vulnerable yet liberated. Around me, the universe appears as blue-tinged transparency; I sense the silhouettes of hidden things. The stars themselves emit X-ray whispers of the violent processes within their cores, and I can perceive those whispers now. It’s both revelation and reckoning—nothing can hide in the X-ray range. Every shadow is a truth exposed. I feel a shiver of humility and fear at my own exposure, but also a thrill—this is knowledge hard-won. I gather those exposed pieces of myself and carry them as light, moving onward into the final frontier of the spectrum.
Now I stand at the brink of the spectrum, where wavelengths are shortest and energy is greatest. The gamma rays roar around me like a cosmic storm. This is the extreme end of light—a place of wonders and terrors. Here, a single burst can outshine galaxies and a single moment can destroy cells. I have never felt so alive and so fragile at once. Entering gamma rays feels like approaching the heart of a star or the edge of a nuclear fire. The very fabric of me vibrates with an almost violent intensity. There is no seeing, no feeling in any ordinary sense—only being. I am immersed in raw, unfiltered power. It should tear me apart—and perhaps it is. I feel myself dissolving, each particle of my being excited beyond measure. But I do not fear. This ultimate radiation fills me with a paradoxical peace, as if I’ve arrived at the core of existence itself: pure energy, beyond color, beyond heat, beyond even visibility or touch. In this maelstrom of gamma light, I sense the boundary between matter and energy blur. I am becoming light incarnate. All the transformations I have undergone—from the quiet whisper of radio waves to this furious gamma crescendo—now come together. Every memory, every emotion from each band of light flashes through me; I hold the red warmth of radio’s nostalgia, the orange glow of microwaves’ comfort, the golden heat of infrared’s life, the entire rainbow’s ecstasy, the ultraviolet's electric urgency, and the X-ray's stark truth. All of it pulses in me simultaneously, a chorus of frequencies I have gathered on my odyssey. At last, in a final burst of understanding, I let go. I release myself to the gamma brilliance. In that surrender, there is a sensation of shattering and unity all at once. I expand outward on a beam of purest light, no longer a traveler separate from the spectrum, but one with it. I have become the light.