The World Inside the Dark

It all starts in darkness, that primordial womb that throws us into its depths and expects us to claw our way out. In those first few seconds, you open your eyes but it doesn’t make a difference. The darkness is a creature wrapping its cold fingers around you and you are stuck inside its belly with only the sound of your rapid breathing for company. It doesn’t matter how much you shout for help; no one can possibly hear you inside this monster. You are too far down in its depths, plummeting miles beneath the Earth where you are bereft of sight and voice. At first, you don’t move for fear of what your outstretched arms will find and then you slowly, anxiously, reach out for the walls that this beast’s stomach must certainly have.

Time is different here. You are caught in the space between the previous moment and the next, a tiny pocket of infinity whose vastness seems to grow bigger the longer you remain stuck inside it. The darkness seems to shift, your breath travels further than it did before, no longer the humid heat that a small space would enclose, and a draft chills your arms. How could you have thought you were stuck inside some small container? A whole world lies in front of you, ebbing and shifting and waiting for your arrival. You peer into the space ahead of you and shapes begin to form themselves out of the darkness. A pair of crimson eyes blinks out at you with curiosity. Shimmering dots blink on and off like stars and rearrange themselves into constellations as you watch.

Creatures are passing by you now, waving at you as if they know you. You study their magnificent wings, gargoyle like beaks, carefully pointed claws. You want to understand this world of entities for which you have no name and suddenly you are moving, wading through the dark sea and further into this realm. Down a winding staircase, through a short tunnel where you can hear the sound of a rushing river, and you emerge into a wide square full of life. More creatures occupy this part of town, completely unlike anything you have ever seen. Over there, there is a magician juggling dark fumes with three of her arms and welding iron with her other three arms. Nearer to you, a creature made entirely of smoke whirls gracefully, unforming and reforming with every turn and pirouette. And their voices. They speak in whispers, small creaks and sighs uttered with charming irregularity and passion. The more you listen, the more you understand what they are saying.

You keep moving, your eyes wide open to absorb everything you can. You aren’t sure you are walking anymore; it feels like gliding through clouds or wading through cool water on a hot summer day. You move past the square and onto a smaller thoroughfare where you notice the houses on either side of you keep changing shape, as if they are made of some kind of fluid material. There is a crowd ahead of you, everyone funneling together toward something you can’t quite make out. The darkness in front of them is more stable, more solid than the rest of this place. Coolness raises the hair on your arms as you push your way to the front of the crowd. The solid blackness is directly ahead, silently bidding you entry. Unsure of what to expect, you extend your hand into this area of nothingness and it sucks you inside.

It is colder here, an emptiness at the heart of this world that strikes you with its overwhelming power. Then you open your eyes again and begin to see. You aren’t nowhere; you aren’t anywhere. You are everywhere, everything and nothing at once, possibility and impossibility intertwined into a cosmic duality. You have never understood infinity until this moment when you stand in between the boundaries of the universe, the infinitesimally small layer between water and oil, the space that exists between the past moment and the present one. You feel the shifting, cold, fluid heart of existence beating out its rhythm in a wave forever extending further and further in all directions. You are at the center of creation, and time is a mere suggestion, a piece of clay you can mold into any manifestation you want.

Unexpectedly, you feel yourself changing. You are a part of this world, you always were. How could you not have seen it before? You no longer feel your feet or your legs; you don’t need them here. Tingling starts at your neck and moves down through your shoulders as patches of blackness tear away from the infinite depths around you to piece themselves into inky wings on your back. You look down at your hands. There is no sight like there was before but you can sense them in the dark, wavy, vaguely outlined borders that move in and out like smoke, like so many of the other creatures that live here. You can no longer tell if your eyes are open or closed and it doesn’t matter; you will always be able to see the ebbing world around you.

With a sharp click, the last of the darkness attaches to your wings and you feel yourself moving again, the last bit of who you once were fading away. You are falling, falling into eternity, plummeting deeper into the space that exists between time as the womb of infinity closes over you. The prickling stars return, shimmering all around you in overwhelming numbers. The creaking whispers are louder now, inviting you to listen and understand them, welcoming you into their domain. Whoever you once were is no longer important. You are ready to speak back to these elusive creatures, you are ready to understand the secrets that lie at the heart of creation. The darkness sings to you, light is but a fleeting memory, time is merely an illusion…

Searing white light splits the world in half and suddenly you are no longer in that world of shapes and smoke. Creatures are speaking to you in funny yellow hats and dark suits. Who are these beings that speak in rhythmic syllables and seem to be made of solid material with only two arms and legs instead of wings? You look down again at your hands and are almost shocked to discover you are made of the same substance. Your shaking arms reach to your back for the wings that no longer exist, but the men are ushering you out, asking if you are okay and how long you were stuck inside.

The moment you step out from that tiny silver container that housed infinity and the moment you start to speak to the firemen, you move from the past moment to the present one, subject once more to the laws of time, and the world you visited fades away from your mind like a dream. For years, every time you close your eyes, you will feel a vague sense of familiarity, a world of creaks and sighs just beyond your senses, but you won’t know where this comes from. The darkness showed you the possibility of infinity, and it ended when you entered the light.