Darkness

Darkness descends on the city,

A morbid, killing sense of blacking-out,

There is a feeling of murkiness

In the waning moon, the fading sea;

It comes and comes and consumes me.

How do you feel when darkness and silence reign? Over the awful urban land, through the vast expanses of sea, with the bellowing smoke of drugs and ecstasy, the sudden north-westerly winds, off the cliffs of your lane, into your house and then slowly into the deep recesses of your mind. So imagine the hours of loneliness and loss, boxed in and boxed out and always willing to break all barriers and yet unable to do so. Darkness is like a ragged, unendurable, tyrannical, fanatical, cruel force that entraps you with all its might. It clings to you like a leech and sucks all your blood. Imagine being alone in a desolate street, lit only by lampposts. Some of the lampposts are blurred by smoky haze. And when you look up, you only see the waning moon through the barren branches of a tree. You yearn for company, warmth, love but there’s no one. You will feel a sense of darkness. And this is not just confined to such deserted spaces. Even in urban jungle, when you let your greed control you, and chase illusions, you will feel dark, empty. In such instances, the darkness seems like devilish creatures coming alive of their own free will, scheming and plotting to end your life. Yet the other side of darkness is light. We cannot perhaps avoid darkness because we need to win it over to be able to see the sunshine. The further we travel into darkness, the slower our life-force becomes. And finally we become slave of darker emotions. So we like to travel from one land to the other, from one relationship to the next, from one goal to another, to keep from getting lost in the dark.

Meghna Maiti