Good afternoon, House of Madness sufferers:
Today's story is a very personal one for me, so I really hope you enjoy this one. It wasn't easy to write, but my day feels a lot less dark now that it's finished. Thanks for reading!
The Dark
It's been almost five years, but I think I'm ready to talk about the dark. Not just the nighttime dark, or the dark you can control with the flip of a switch, I'm talking about a dark so real, it can consume your entire existence, as it has many others. In theory, we're all running to escape the darkness, and every day it inches closer and closer, calling out to us with its welcoming, yet vindictive motives of torture and suffering. To many, the darkness is nothing more than the result of an unlucky few, but it lives entrenched within all of us, waiting to sink its sinister claws deep into our auras, manifesting patiently while we try to bury its malicious deeds on a daily basis. Not all of us succumb to the dark, but those are few in numbers, and the rest of us will have to prepare to battle the demons that live buried below in the depths of our souls.
It was just a regular Wednesday as I pulled into the parking lot at 7 a.m., ready for whatever awaited me at my sortation desk. Life as a mailman can be pretty sweet on a good day, and it can be absolute hell on a bad one. Today was somewhere in between, as the workload seemed manageable for me, and I should be home sipping Diet Pepsi by no later than 1 p.m.; yet something seemed amiss in my thoughts as I backed my vehicle up to the dock, getting it ready to stuff with overflowing parcels and letters. I returned to my desk and began sorting the seemingly endless stack of letters and magazines, while I joked and chatted with my colleagues in the aisle. Suddenly, an overwhelming feeling took control of my entire body, and I was consumed by a blackness I had never seen before, but have seen many times since. I rushed into my boss's office frantically searching for safety, but I could tell immediately that he was sent from the dark, serving the evil Lord that so desperately hungered for my soul which had finally lost its way. I had to escape.
I raced home as fast as I could, but there was no point in looking in my rearview mirror as i could feel the darkness not only upon me, but within me. As I barged inside my front door, my wife was there, almost as if she had been waiting for my arrival, thirsting to pull me down into the darkness that called me so loudly. We embraced, and as she tried to soothe me, I could feel her talons trying to breach my skin, and shred my organs as I gave in to the darkness that was now consuming me. I wanted to give up, but I tore away and headed upstairs to my bedroom sanctuary, and hid until I could once again see the light. Phone calls to friends, doctors, and family gave me hope, but then the dark would cast a shadow with phone calls of its own from corporations, insurance companies, and businesses with agendas that wanted me to stop running away from the dark, and run directly into it instead. It was tempting, but as beautiful as the dark can seem, I always saw the hideous corpse that lay beneath the surface.
Days became weeks, and weeks became months as I tried to steer myself away from the dark, but its clutches were always close, ready to comfort me whenever I was ready. Many times I looked into the darkness because it is cloaked with a beautiful essence of relief from my suffering, yet I know it's all smoke and mirrors designed to deceive me into giving in. Children's voices call out from the darkness begging for help, skeletal arms reach out trying to drown me in the hellish oasis within, and mirages of happiness manifest themselves in a false beam of light, hoping I will not see it for what it really is, and head down its path into morbid destruction. After a lot of hard work, and much convincing from others, I was ready to go back to where it all began, and claim my sanity back by returning to work.
The transition back to everyday blue collar life was relatively seamless, as seeing my friends and having a purpose rectified my last two years of living in a mental cell. I'd almost admit things were going well, until the unthinkable happened - the darkness returned. The worst part wasn't realizing it was back, the worst part was realizing it had never left, and I felt like I had been bamboozled into thinking I had my life back. Nothing seems more unfair than arm wrestling the devil himself, only to realize that if you happen to win, he has a thousand more arms ready to fight, each one stronger than the last; unbeknownst to him and luckily for me, I have a thousand and one.
So, here we are, April 5th, 2023 and I'm writing to you now when at one time I never thought possible, because the dark is a convincing beast that lurks around every corner, behind every doorway, and under every rooftop just waiting for opportunity to present itself, so it can make itself known. I'm here to tell you that the dark is a very real, dangerous place, but the true danger lies within yourself, and nobody has more power over you than you. Never again will I think I've escaped the dark, but I will say that I've looked inside its heart, and the blackness within will never again tempt me - now that I've seen the light.
NB
