Dark

It had been weeks, probably almost months since I felt well enough to do anything but lay at home, staring alternatively between the ceiling and my blank notebook. Nothing had been coming too me but I haven't been well enough to get out of the house long enough to find myself some inspiration. Yet, when I awoke this morning I had this energy I'd never felt before.

Hurriedly, I dressed in a comfortable pair of pants and a baggy shirt to hide my sickly thin frame and grabbed my notebook and wallet on my way out the door. It had been so long since I felt so alive. I wanted to do so much! Too long had passed since I sat beneath a tree so I went quickly to the park, hunkering down to watch the people, the animals, the leaves, the grass, the clouds, the bugs and all the while I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote.

I couldn't stop writing and I couldn't stop looking. It was as if everything was writing it's own personal story through me. I was channelling every living thing, anything that had ever had a blinking moment of thought, consciousness, was talking through me and I had to, just had to get it all out. I didn’t understand where it was all coming from but if felt amazing to have that kind of desire to write when I had spent so long fighting and fighting for things to say, images to describe.

I passed all day under that tree, and into the evening. More people than I had seen in years had walked before me, had their brief impact on my life as I wrote about their expression, their walk, what they had to be thinking. Dogs, cats, squirrels and bugs alike all decorate the lives of these people who fascinated me with just passing by, being around and enjoying themselves as I was in that park.

The world around me – trees, clouds, bushes, flowers – felt so alive, so sentient that when the wind blew, the trees would reach for the bird that flew past it, catching it on a fragile limb. The flowers would yearn for a bee of their own and when one came close enough, they would call to it, their colours brightening to stand out that much more than their rival.

The Sun itself had left me too and I could hardly feel the difference. My notebook was almost half full now with the thoughts and ramblings of everything that had passed by me in the day and I felt full and renewed. Then the night came and I felt so much more. The darkness wrapped itself around me like a cool, cool comfort holding me to it.

I wrote about the Dark. His feelings, his loves, hates, wants, needs, desires. Dark talked to me, lulled me into the most relaxed state I had been in since I first fell ill. I felt so alive and so calm and so at peace with the world. I was practically a part of the tree now, we knew each other so intimately. We were friends and the Dark was our friend too. I wrote about that. I wrote about our relationship and how it was strangely exotic to feel so at home in the middle of the night, in a park underneath a tree.

Then suddenly I was achingly tired. The Dark was still with me, the tree was still there but I couldn’t write any more. I couldn’t move for how tired I was. My body was shutting down, not everything at once but slowly. One by one. First, my legs wouldn’t move. I wanted to panic but the wind whispered to me, told me to relax, to let my body take it’s course. Then my pen dropped, I watched it fall to the ground and tried to reach for it but couldn’t. I wanted to write what I was feeling but my body had forsaken me. It had turned on me. Lured me out and away from my comforts into the Dark and it was going to leave me there.

Soon, my heart was beating wildly and my breathing came in short bursts of pain. I wanted to scream, I tried to scream but my lungs did nothing but burn as tears slipped down my cheek. I hurt more than I had ever hurt in my life and I knew, I knew that wouldn’t be able to last yet the Dark still whispered for me to relax my mind as my body did what it had to. I relaxed into the pain, closed my eyes. I could feel myself slipping away, away from the tree, the park, the darkness, everything.

I knew where I was going and I knew what was happening now. That day happened for a reason, I wrote about everything and who ever finds me will read about everything I wrote about and they will be inspired. They will find something in my pages that will bring them happiness, peace, love, tranquility.

Just like the park brought me to it. Like the tree gave me support. Like the Dark took me and let me leave my pain behind.