The Darkness

The Darkness

Suddenly it is dark.  I am not sure how or when the night arrived but the fact is that the sun has retired as if hiding from something, allowing the darkness to envelop his forgotten realm.

I do not like the darkness, but I am attracted by it.  I feel compelled to drive around aimlessly as a myriad of thoughts race through my mind.  Images of a stubborn past I would rather forget, images of a probable present I would rather not know, images of a certain future I cannot face.  Faces that haunt me, smiles that taunt me, voices of angels and of demons.  Angels and demons that share the same faces, the same smiles, the same voices.

I park in a dark, forgotten street.  I stare through the windscreen.  The darkness oppresses me but still I sit and stare at the shadows, tones of grey and black moving in their stillness, changing shapes, dancing as I struggle to pinpoint them.  I can see their shadows.  I relish in the solitude, in the peacefulness of the night.

The dark seems to be getting darker.  Thick, black and viscous.  It seems to be moving, slowly engulfing everything around me, stealing the little I can see.  I struggle to focus my eyes as I look at the darkness seeping through the window.  I lift my hand, palm facing up, so that I can hold the thick droplets.  It is cold, tingly.  It seems to burrow through my skin and find its way inside me.

I can no longer see my hand, the darkness keeps dripping and its viscous mass is now slowly, lazily flowing down my arm.  As I look down, I realise I cannot see my legs.  My chest seems to vanish into a haze of black.  I cannot tell exactly how far down I can see but I do know that the black seems to be getting closer to my eyes.  I can see imaginary flickers of the past in the darkness.  I can see ghosts.

My arm is gone.  I cannot feel anything below my neck.  I close my eyes as the tingling sensation starts crawling up my face and I rest my head back.  More haunting shapes hide behind my eyelids which seem to leap into life as I stare at them.

I feel peaceful, relieved, as the darkness reaches my eyes.  My thoughts slowly fade away and soon they are nothing more than a distant whisper, confusing, hazy, indistinct…