The others who are here are more unsettled than the carriage; their monstrous faces, pointing at me from the blackened glass panes, beckon in me a knowing, a familiar glisten on my skin. Their layered voices play a cello, accompanied by the rhythm from the clanging of steel and wires and electricity. Patrons of the dark, unseen and unheard by the light. The air, in search of moisture, cling to particles of soot and take refuge in my nose; we are all in darkness. I’ve learned it’s better to sit than to attempt standing through the capricious terrain so I hug my knees and rest the side of my head against the chilled glass.
There is a warmth, an aliveness, away from the light and it cradles me like a loving parent. Truth seeks freedom in the dark, as if the light holds it captive, scared of being seen clothed in a fresh, raw carcass of humanity. It’s when hunters hunt. It’s when we do our most honest deeds. The absence of light is when we return to the base nature of all existence, for light was added long after the existence of nothingness; darkness was not added to light. Without black, there is no white. Without chaos how are we to know peace.
It’s at this division of duality I sit torn and pained and it’s here where I must let go of my knees and find my balance, standing. I cannot escape. I forget why it is I am trying so hard to cling to the light. There must be balance in all things: right and wrong, good and bad, light and dark, black and white. Yet, with all my might I try and close the door in the face of my truth, my nothingness, only to hurt myself and betray the others. Instead, I will stand and release my grip of the handle and witness the collision unfold into the thing of beauty I was intended to be.
