I once again find myself returning to the darker area of my shelf to withdraw an account of an event in my own life, some years ago. The events it details are strange, and I cannot adequetly explain them even today. I will allow, for now, the dusty penmarks of a man writing twenty two years ago to recount this tale, a story I have come to remember well in the years that separate me from it.
"Tonight, I arrived home fearful of the world outside my doors. I went to my cellar and poured a glass of something I hoped wouuld make the world seem more secure but did nothing to relieve my anxieties. This page is my final port of safety: childish, I suppose, to pour out my demons onto a page; I am not so foolish as to believe they will be exorcised from my mind in recollection. No, I do not believe that recording an event makes it lesser, or removes the weight it places upon the mind. What I know is that if I can record the events, put them in a place that is not my mind and close the book behind them, they can become written facts, easier to accept than the fearful words I want to scream to the wind and rain. I cannot put my demons to rest, but I can give them a name, and reduce my fear through knowing them.
I ramble, but only to delay a task I know I must begin. Only through the rational can fear be fought, and fight it I must if I wish to continue my task. The Collection is important, and must continue. This evening, I was in the nearby township, collecting a small sum of money from the bank to meet this months financial concerns. Money has not been an issue for me, and will not be as long as I continue to collect, but I digress from my recollection. I mention it only because it was in the town that the events of my story took place. After leaving the bank, I turned onto the main street and begun the walk to my home, as the sun begun to set in the sky. It was as I was walking aling the main road that I noticed the low level of activity in the street. It is and was a Saturday, and the street was a popular one, with two of the local taverns located upon it. The road was completely bare of travellers, and I was one of only several people left on the path. It struck me as strange, but I continued up the long street and turned down onto the next.
I am not a man of great pace and as I rounded the corner the sun was making its way below the hills. Darkness was beginning to decend over the streets, but not one light was on in any window. The street lamps, usually the first lights lit, were this evening absent. My spine prickled, and a voice I would come to know well begun to whisper well in the back of my mind, but my own nature led me to ignore them. A power outage, I reasoned to myself, nothing more. Nonetheless I walked faster, reaching the edge of the village before the sky grew much darker. Climbing the hill outside the village I wished nothing more than to get home as quickly as possible, and perhaps enquire tomorrow about power outages in the area. Nonetheless, as I crested the hill I turned to look back at the town behind me, which by this time should have glowed with light and colour.
In the dark, I could not even make out the buildings. Not a light, not a sound echoed up out of the town, now overshadowed by the darkness of the fast approaching winter night.Early in the morning as I had walked down into the town, the sounds of a city waking up had sounded from below me: Now, just a few hours later, there may as well have been no town at all. I was afraid, and I still am afraid, and I turned and ran from the dead vilage, fearful of the spreading dark. The country lane was not lit, and I ran in the dark, fearful of the noise I made as my old feet touched the ground.
I tired quickly, not being as physically capable as I once was, and walked with haste for my home.It was not far, and I begun to find a sort of comfort in the sound of each step taking me away from the village that had lost its light.Each step was a small sound of sanity, a reminder that noise and light could prevail, even as the dark and silent vilage hung in my mind.
And then it was quiet.
Nothing changed: The night was still dark, the lane stil just visible in the dark, my feet still moving along the path. Nothing had changed, except that my footsteps were silent. My breathing was silent. I could hear nothing, nothing at all in a silent lane.
I cried out, from fear and my desperate need to hear something, anything. Nothing: no noise echoed from the trees and the hills around me. I felt my heart beating soundlessly in my ears and I screamed again. Alone, confused and suddenly deaf to the world: Fear does not describe what I felt, screaming souundlessly into nothing, and knowing nothing would save me. I found strength in my legs, and ran. I ran for my home, screaming to the wind that I felt without hearing and the dirt below me I could feel my feet hitting without the noise I never knew I would miss.
I cannot remember when sound returned: I only remember falling to the ground and sobbing with happiness when it did. I don't know how long I ran in silence, but when I finally stood I was outside my home. I went inside, hands shaking and sat down in my favourite chair. I took this notepad from my pocket, and started to write. I have told my story, here by the dull electric light of my living room, and it has not helped me accept or forget. I can only hope that when I shut this book, and put it on my shelf, and walked away from it, I will be able to accept it and move on. I very much doubt will."
It's been years since I put that notebook on a shelf at the back of my livingroom, but I doubt a day has gone by where I did not think about the events it details. It was a week before I returned to the town: The lights were on, the people were out and about, buskers played music and children argued loudly on the streetcorner. I wonder about that place now: About the people who hurried for cover that night, about the lights that vanished from the streets and the silent homes which should have echoed with laughter. Long ago, I doubted I could ever forget the silent that decended over the world: Today, with years of life behind me, I know I never will.
