Dark Things.

Last night. Reminded me of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." A totally different yarn. Fireworks blowing up around us. Three of us sitting in the backyard, on chairs in the dark; one doing most of  the talking, two of us listening.

Dark things. The conversation took a very strange, dark turn. The little black box of secrets opened up, and the dark, terrible things spilled out in a rush. A long, rambling monologue. Risky behavior. Mad adventures. Dark turns. Freudian murmurings. Drugs. Sex. Deep sickness & pain. Suffering.

A sad, disturbing tale. A hint of yawning madness, a hint of deep sickness. The two listeners realized they didn't know anything. What they thought they knew was shallow, and off the mark. The soundtrack was complete mayhem, fireworks, loud explosions, building to a frenetic crescendo.

The darkness, the sound & fury. Signifying less than nothing. The smell of gunpowder lingered in the steamy night air. The conversation faded into the black. Yes, a heart of darkness. A blackness, a void, a deep, deadly, dead-end.

The two of us, trying to process everything we just heard; we both sort of recoiled. Who is fit to judge another person's behavior? We both wanted to take a shower, perform some kind of ritual cleanse. What of the light? What of heart, soul, love? There is the long, sordid litany of the stark human needs, the yawning pit: needing, wanting, grasping, twisted desires, Meat Puppets stumbling in the dark. We were reminded of the Jean Paul Sartre idea: Hell is Other People. Do we choose between darkness & light? Or are we chosen? Do we choose a death-trip, or a life-trip? Or do both choose us?

We parted, said our goodbyes to the narrator, then a long, rambling walk and conversation in the darkness. We tried to explain to each other how that litany of dark things wasn't our way. What was the meaning of it all? We hit the pillow dreaming of a better day, a better way.  This morning wake up to light streaming through the window. Dark clouds, dark murmurings just a sad, bleak residue. A hangover of darkness.