Nights

Night was the enemy, darkness its sword.

With the whispered arrival of midnight imagination takes over. Each sound amplified. Each shadow a boogeyman sprung whole from Stephen King's fertile imagination. Sleep, is but a memory, a dream of golden cities, ancient kings.

Fear waltzed with his subconscious. Twisted paranoia ravages his mind.

God exists.

God is dead.

The soul survives the bodies’ death.

There is no soul flesh is naught but worm food.

These debates eternal created sailor knots of lore within his intestinal tract. Knots the Great Houdini himself could never escape. Shallow, rapid breaths failed to expand his lungs while his tapped danced like Fred Astair.

Panic ensued.

Up off the bed he found himself pacing questing for solace. Upstairs, downstairs back again, roaming hallways of his existence searching for peace finding empty space.

Television beckons and he sits on the floor as if praying before some technological god. Legs crossed he is seven years old again watching cartoons on Saturday morning. Images tango across his vision random samples of a midnight world. Airwaves bloated by exercise videos, music collections and the latest greatest slicing and dicing tools. Nothing catches his eye. Nothing provides comfort for his tortured soul.

Hungrily he glances at the phone dialing is not an option no one understands his late night fears.

TV off he is roaming once again. Not unlike Scrooge waiting for 1:00 AM’s ghostly visitor. He stops before a shelf of classic novels, which once belonged to his father. His fingers trace along titles unseeingly tonight though even the written word fails to comfort.

Upstairs again he flops into an old cane rocker staring out into the night. Watching the wind create fractal patterns blowing leaves around the yard.

Chaos.

Maybe.

He opens a long ignored closet pulling a dusty box down from the top shelf. Removing the lid his tired mind struggles with the memories both sweet and bitter that the contents rekindle.

Photos of his parents.

Letters from old girlfriends.

His high school ring.

Bookmarks and diaries.

Dusty memories all.

Buried beneath the dank and moldy past an old friend. Pickles the last remnant of his innocent child hood. A calico cat hand made for him by his great-grandmother, stained, faded and missing an eye Pickles was for him the definition of comfort.

Gently he removes Pickles from his bed of decades cradling him in his arms, the scents of yesterday a faint reminder clinging to the tattered fur.

He shuffles back to his rocking chair curling up into a childlike ball. With Pickles back on guard duty he soon drifts off no longer haunted by visions of darkness.

Original post July 2004