Inferno

I watched the fire spread .. breathing and growing. But it left a clear path to the forest and I turned from the little girl and I followed the grass. The fire rose up on either side of me like great walls and I felt all the tiny hairs on my body rise to meet the electrified air around me. I arrived at the edge of the forest and the fire had spread so that all the trees were engulfed in flames rising up to the Sky. I hesitated a moment .. if there is a fear I have it is of fire. But I gathered myself and stepped within the forest of burning trees.

Darkness came and surrounded me ... not darkness that most people are used to. Not the lack of light .. but the kind of darkness that ambushes light and assassinates it. I could smell the stench of rotting light all around me ... faint outlines of light as it faded with a sigh like a death rattle and was no more. The slaughter continued until there was nothing left to remind me that light had even ever existed beyond some kind of dream .. a dream of something that I only wished could exist. Not the kind of dream where I remembered that it did.

So I sat with darkness .. my old friend ... and I waited to see what darkness had to say to me for surely I had been summoned here to listen. And darkness came .. still dripping with the ichor stain of light ... and darkness crawled inside of me. I listened as darkness spoke. Darkness was in good spirits for darkness had a full gullet. I took the words of darkness .. as I always did ... and pondered them long after darkness curled up within me to nap .. sleeping off the food coma that all the firelight had given. I am not sure how long I sat there within the burning forest but I finally stood. Since there was no longer any light from the fire I used the heat to guide my way back out of the forest and along the path of grass. And soon I felt the small hand of the little girl slip within my large callused one.