Internal Darkness

Stinging salt water fills my mouth and nose. I cough, the wet, hacking cough of someone who has swallowed too much sea water. Water sloshes around my face and I feel something gritty pressing into the side of my face. I open my eyes, squinting at the light glaring down, to see sand and frothy sea foam just inches from my face.

Shakily, I push myself into a sitting position on the beach and take in my surroundings. Ocean that I remember as black and thick as tar washes up on the beach in gurgling blue-green waves, lapping at my bare feet. The sand is as bright and clear as diamonds and shines in the hot midday sun. Dazed, I look down at myself, half expecting my skin to be shining with color. But it is not so. My skin is still grey and dull, my hair black and limp. The rags wrapped around me are woven from internal Darkness, sucking the very color and light from the world around me.

A soft noise brings me whirling around in a panic. I stare, bewildered, at the procession of people crossing the beach a few yards off. They are all dressed in yellow and flame, and they carry strange instruments on which they played sweet, laughing music. They dance as they go, reveling in their life and beauty and light. I crouch down, watching the music swirl in bright colors from the instruments.

One of them notices me and points, saying something to one of his companions. They gather curiously around me, chattering like magpies. One points to my colorless skin and speaks, strumming a note on his instrument. Colored light rises and floats merrily about my head. The others cry out in delight and form a circle around me, singing and dancing and setting the air a-whirl with color.

At first the colors land and stick to me, and I nearly weep in relief. But they quickly fade, sucked away by the internal Darkness that shrouds me. They sing and dance with more enthusiasm and the colors fly, only to be sucked away even quicker. And then their song begins to falter, descending into mere noise. Their feet trip and trod upon each other, landing them sitting in the sand.

They cease playing and rise to their feet, defeat etched on their faces. They tuck their instruments under their arms and slowly wander off, one by one. The one who first noticed me solemnly drapes a flame-colored scarf around my shoulders and wanders off with the rest into the growing Darkness. I watch them go with the Darkness weighing even more heavily on me. I look down at the scarf hopefully. It is stone grey. I look out to the waves. They are as black and thick as pitch.

And I weep.