Could it be Night?

"Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see."-HELEN KELLER

There is a question. She asks it over and over. But, is it her voice that asks or a hallucination, a dream perhaps while awake? Could it be Night? Maybe. Maybe not. I think, yet I don't think. It is all obscured by the underground room she inhabits. The dirt covers the door from outside and suffocates her perception. I am askew...I think...am I right? Where is the sound of the plane? Where is the automobile? The hiss and roar of the buses? How did I get here? What is the sun like? Was it ever? The dirt covers the small window with the torn shade. The shade was once a calm blue, but it has yellowed and turned to mold. It hangs like a carcass ripe with decay. Of quiet end. Could it be night? What...how is the window blocked. Oh, the shade. A new one I guess. This room used to be attached to a house. I can't remember to what house. I can't remember to which line of blood I ..... Not to any...I...can't remember. I lost my memory these past years. Everything is a watercolor oozing and dripping and running a collage of color warped and eating through the thick paper. I keep the lights on. I try to get the light. But it isn't the same as it used to be. Out there. I think I saw a sunflower garden glowing in the sun. The sun is gone. Why am I here now? How did I get here? Oh. Oh. The trail of her voice echoes in her own ears like a stale tinnitus. She can't escape it. She can't remember how it was to hear voices other than her own. She has been alone save for her pet rat Sniv all this time. How much time? She cannot recall. Her memory is no longer green and young as it used to be. It has frayed and browned with time locked up inside her cell. This used to be her bedroom. It has long been displaced by her fractured perception. Is this real? If we had her eyes would we be stuck as well? Or maybe she is right in that she sees only with the props she has been given and is complying with the moment. The moments. The lack of air. The depletion of sun. The loss of time. The lack of another voice to bring her back to the sky. It was blue. I remember. It was blue. That bubble overhead. It surrounded me...us....there was us. Who was us? Why blue? So strange, yet so wonderfully a mystery. I am no scientist. I like the not knowing why of certain elements. It makes for a more interesting backdrop for my fictitious life. And then black. Black. The night. All dense. Shadows crowd the streets. Shadows are projected from trees. Shadows are spreading on the moist grass. I think I saw a face, or something like one, pass and darken through a shadow....then....the orb...the glow in the sky- that huge round ball...made the face illuminate in the softest, most lovely way. Could it be night? Oh, yes, it is. I remember. Yet, I don't remember.. the owner of the face. Odd. How so? Is it insane to not know where, when, and why? To forget your birth? To crumble? Can this be rectified? The rubble that stains the memory with a bleak streak of amnesia...an eclipse of the memory. The being has not perceived the penetration of such a fine curse. It is without weight or force. It whispers into the mind. It is slow and greedy. It is bland to ask why all the time. Talking to a room and not another. To become detached from faces that once registered with an identity familiar. Sometimes she cries in frustration. And then, shamefully, cuts off her indulgence with an aloof air of forgetfulness. The fits and starts. They are nothing but dead air. Save for Sniv. Sniv is a comfort. Sniv is a life-form. Innocent, a creature. She always remembers good when spending time with Sniv. He is a reminder of good. Of pure. In his eyes she reflects like a daffodil engulfed in a ray of sunlight. Perpetuating beauty. No fragments. No broken images. No ailments. Just good. She cares for him like a child. Like a mother. It frees her from the sting of her own flesh. Of her own child that taps at her skull and makes her afraid. Afraid. Of what? She can't say. I cannot say why I get so scared. It is this intuition. I am not sure whether to disregard it or listen. But, I can't. It is overwhelming like the smell at low tide. It is murky and makes me dizzy with nausea. The swamp seeps through my conscious. I believe it used to be unpleasant. The stench formidable. A stab in the nostrils. Wafts of death,creeping sick. Oh. The night. It lasts forever and tries to put out my lights. I always keep a light on. I can't be swallowed. I won't let it. Could it be....night? Please be quiet. SHHH. No more of that. I want to see the splendor of the burning star in warm season. Glowing bodies full of color. The pale washed out with tone and bronze and golden. Oh....why...am I perpetually trapped. I think that is it. I am trapped. I just don't know how it happened. I don't know why. I know the change was drastic. I couldn't stop it. It ate me up. I couldn't stop it. Now I am here. I can't say how or why. But, time has been taken. I know now how precious it was. Time. A lot has gone. And me in here like a fixture. Melding into the walls and floor and air. All over. Sometimes I can't stand it. Sometimes I want to go. I say "Please help" to nothing but old air and gaping solitude. I did not want this. So why has it come to be? Did I? Certainly no one else...Her brows are sketched into incomprehensible anger. The anger fluctuates between anguish and fits of tears to bold pragmatic and reserved acceptance. But, lately not so much acceptance. She has begun to perceive her situation as detrimental to her well-being. This is true. But, she floats often back into the womb of that underground room and gets lost in its embrace. It is not so much an embrace. It is an enveloping ownership....a suffocation. Not so pleasant as the strong grip of love or respect, if there is such a thing. She wonders why she moves through the endless mesh of indistinguishable day and night. No change in atmosphere. When to go to sleep When to awaken. When to eat. Has she eaten? Does she dream? Of what? Where was the turn. The twist in the road. The dent in the sign. Come back. Come back. Remember freedom. Remember dreams. Remember motivation. Don't let the apocryphal night pervade the day and make indistinguishable sun from rain. Human. Blood flow.Movement. Punch in the window. Dig through to life. Life. Over and over this strange voice tampers with my patience. Could it be night? Yes! Forever night! and God forbid you speak no more, you unpleasant sore, glaring perverse into my heart, piercing my desire, my love, of life. If the quicksand is coming, let it come, and be done! But, I cannot rot in this purgatory. It is rot, it is like building a casket with a battered brain. It is the end. I cannot see. The dirt sprinkles my eyes. How? Did I let it? Admit your emptiness brought you to this mud slide. This need to be in hiding from the substance that drives the body forward and into those ideas that were once just thoughts, now they are coming to fruition! Oh! But, where is the desire? Am I to shame it was all a lie? A mirage that wounds the brilliance of a soul once it disappears and reveals something close to death. Death. Death. The wheels spin off the carriage, they no longer serve the passengers and are tossed into the wrecking yard amongst other traces of obsolete refuse. The tracks for the train have coiled in the heat. It is 1,000 degrees. Imagine! The train approaches with it's melted people and they are off, spinning into oblivion, into a timeless arena of nothing, of dust and broken limbs. How could they have foreseen this disaster? How could they have prevented this horrid tarnish on the luster of LIFE. Hell. I ask myself. I speak to the molded walls. Indifference. Cruel silence. Listen as my thoughts die. Never is a complete sentence. Lack of words. Caged speech. Caged mind. Pinioned body. Animal. Human. No more identification. I have descended into a pitfall. Once, smiles and laughter; the warmth of connection. Now, I know not myself and have severed all connections. I think I saw my limbs start to darken as if my circulation were compromised. I will lay down I think. Lay down. And listen to the voice until I drown in hatred. No more grey matter to clog up lobes of my brain. Down I go. Into the strangulation of blankets and feathers. Down. Could it be night? Goodnight. Yes. Good. Night. It is night. Always.