The Love of Darkness
It was that silence in the evening, the one that hovers in the air. That sensation of a completed day leaving you snuggled deep in covers far too thick for a comfortable sleep, only to find them kicked far aside early next morning. Although, it wasn't morning yet. It was the evening, one with just the right glimmer of light sneaking through treetops to justify leaving the curtains undrawn, letting you gaze out at bloody skies. A horizon stained but not tainted – released; undignified. Painted with emotion. The night was cold, but the evening was warmer than any sunlight, and you admired its striking colours in your pretty patterned pyjamas, two sizes too big, creased beyond repair.
And as you turn back to the silence, you're faced with a ghost who died no more than five minutes ago. A woman unrested with a darkness in her eyes, a vacancy in her movements and a tension in her scalp from the ponytail pulled back tight. You knew she was friendly but more than dead; she never looked once at the evening sky - it was a distraction she’d become more than accustomed to. She was pale too, like a skeleton, and hunched, like a witch. She moved in the night without a shiver, without a sign of life, and she never laid her eyes on the moon in case she would howl her discomfort away.
So, to the covers you bury again, drawing the curtains to shut out the chilling night and switching off lights to match the dawdling ghost’s vacant eyes. At first, the horizon was bleeding through the cotton, but it eventually drained away and the silence started to descend. It layered on thinly, slowly building up and dragging you away to a world where consequences don’t exist. A world stained like the crimson sky, choked in the delights of an idle memory or a mere insignificant passing thought. An abstract artwork beyond logic or details – nothing aligned, and, for just those night hours, you needn’t mind.
However, then you will arise as a cry pierces through your sleep, rattles through your mind. It contorts the visuals within you, as if slashing at canvas, and you will be lifted. Lifted to the metallic screams of the clock. Reminded of the sterile beating of your heart.
Then there will be a couple purrs coming from below, by the heap of discarded covers, and up she will pounce, her thick coat of black fur glistening in morning sunshine. Towards you she will stroll and prickle you wide awake with sharp whiskers, and it will be the last sensation that you feel all day. You will strip from your patterned pyjamas, button up a crisp clean shirt, and draw those defensive curtains that glow eerily alight. It will blind you; it will steal away the glimmer in your eyes – call it its own. The sky will be clear blue – uniform – and you will creep away into the streets, pale under its overwhelming light and hunched in its searing heat. You will try to glance at the sun as it watches you, but these hopeless attempts leave you dazed.
Although – it isn’t the morning yet – it is the evening. The moon peers over the horizon, dead and blind, hanging there. The sky is a corrupt explosion, expressing every love, every hatred and every lust that lies below it. It is silent, and you treasure how it courteously hovers in the air, disappearing at your word. And you realise how dreadfully warm you feel in the evening, even without a hot cup of chocolate in your hands. You look up at the sky and realise, as it all begins to melt away, how awfully transient your peaceful night can be.