When the Darkness is Lit

I'm near a river, watching the clear water flow endlessly to one direction. The sky is bright and cloudless, the grass as green as green can get. I'm slightly confused. I'm never in a place like this, not in the dark depths of a sleepless night. And so many nights I've had, where I lie awake in a dark place, frightened, confused, longing to see some light, some happiness, some reassuring sign that I'll soon go to sleep and dream a pleasant reality. In those times, I feel as though if I saw what I am seeing now, everything would be better, and I could find laughter and joy in light. But now that I am there, now that I've found what I look for on so many insomniatic nights of mine, I do not find myself happy. I don't understand. I don't understand at all.

I glance beside me and see a flower, slowly wilting, slowly shriveling up. I remember the darkness, the confusion, the desperate howling winds begging for a home, waters trying to push me down, the melancholy entrapments of a forlorn saxophone. They all come back to me in a flash. It doesn't matter whether I am unhappy or not, I must keep this flower alive. I must keep the light going. I mustn't let the darkness take over once more.

I make my way to the river and cup my hands to get some, but the water will not stay in my hands. I grab another handful of water, but it keeps slipping through my fingers. It won't stay. The flower is quickly dying, it is quickly turning black. Soon, the sky turns from blue to a melancholy gray, the water turns pitch black, and the grass itself disappears. I fall down to my knees, torn in two, as the everything goes, swiftly, and just beyond my reach. Just above my fingertips. I can never get it back, and just as I begin to cry, I hear the roaring of the winds, far away.

No. They are coming again, the howling winds, the ghosts of the people, the crowding people, the screaming desperate souls of the lowly coming to haunt me once again. Coming to seek, coming to ask. I gather myself up and get to my feet. I begin to run; run as fast as I can. I don't know anything, and there's nothing I can do to help. I run, I try to fly as I have once before, but I can no longer run that fast. They are coming, and when they do, they will devour me, swallow me whole.