There is peace in darkness

The world was black, but that was alright, for there was peace in darkness. I sat on my old chair and listened to the wind howling outside. The branches of a long dead tree rattled against the shutters, which groaned on their rusted hinges. But it wasn’t the sounds I could hear that worried me, it was the one sound that wasn’t there. My stomach burned in my gut as I hadn’t eaten anything solid in more days than I cared to count, and now it wrung itself into all kinds of twists and turns as I fought to come to terms with the unbearable. I kept my eyes closed as for now, at least there was peace in darkness.

I knew I had to open my eyes again, and face the world, or what was left of it, but I didn’t want to. Not just yet. My eyelids were heavy, more so than my other limbs, but everything was difficult. I took a deep breath and inhaled the familiar scents of home, mingled with those of sadness and loss, as I knew what I had to do. I knew what I had promised. It was the most difficult thing you could ask, of any man at any time, in my opinion, to leave behind his home, his hearth, but a promise made meant there was no other way. Besides: I was not any man at any time, I was me, just me, in the here and now. I knew I had to open my eyes and face the harshness of reality, but there was peace in darkness.

I took another deep breath, and stretched my sore back, but even the gentle pops of my spine decompressing did nothing to release any tension. As I sat up straight, I shuffled my feet on the solid wooden floor, and remembered laying it together with my son. A smile creaked across my dry lips at that fleeting image of sunshine and happiness. I touched the seat of my chair as if trying to hold on to a past life that I knew was gone, as I prepared to force open my eyes.

I listed, hoping to hear that one sound that would bring me relief, that would warm my heart and lighten my dark thoughts, but it was not there. Not anymore.

I knew what world would meet me, and I would weep at the very thought, if there only would have been tears left to shed. There was no other way. Everything was gone.

I opened my eyes and looked across my dining room table, into the once beautiful face of my wife. Her eyes were still closed, and a pang in my heart confirmed what my ears had heard, and my eyes had seen in an instant, she would never have to open them again. The only solace I could take from that, was that at least there was peace in darkness.

I looked at her raven hair, with streaks of grey in it, signs we were getting closer to achieving the dreams we dreamt together when we were young and madly in love, than we had cared to admit. God I loved her, she was my life, and now she was gone.

As was everything else.

The last meagre scraps of food we had survived on had been used a long time ago, leaving behind only empty tins, licked out three times over, if not more, to serve as a memory of what food tasted like. Our water had run out three days ago, and my wife, while staying with me as long as her spent body had been able, had left me today.

Letting go was part of life, and while it had always been difficult to do, it never had felt as heavy as here and now. Not when my son had grown up and left for college all those years ago, not when he came by less and less. This felt so terribly final.

There was nothing for me here anymore. No food, no water, and no one alive to love, live and die for. I forced my eyes away from her as I took a last look around the house that had been my home from the moment we had moved in, young and full of life, full of purpose and a dream to build a beautiful life and grow old together. In spite of it all I smiled. We did have that, a beautiful life, as long as it lasted. I never had felt any desire to leave this town, to leave this house, as every familiar little detail held its own rich history. Each square feet of floor or wall had a story to tell, and I loved all of it. I took up my bag from the ground next to my trusty chair, as I took in the memory of the place a last time, and prepared myself to head out into the maelstrom of the unknown.

How easy would it have been to just remain seated, with my heavy eyes closed, drifting in and out of consciousness until I would be no more, there would be a wonderful peace in that. An eternal darkness, yet still brighter than the world I faced. But I could not choose that easy route. I had made a promise, and I would keep it, as long as I had eyes to open, and feet to move, I would go on. I stood one last lingering moment in my home, nodded to myself and kissed my wife goodby in my memory, as if it were an ordinary workday in an ordinary week of a normal life in a normal world, I turned the doorknob and stepped outside.

Strong winds pricked my eyes as I closed the door behind me, and I felt tears well up behind dry eyelids as I left everything I had once loved and lived for behind, on the road to find my own peace in the darkness of this world.