Archives | Older: Drawing Harvest 13, 11-19-08
Newer: Lack of Internet, Lack of Posting
Alar's Avatar

11/30/08 The Boy in the Darkness

By Alar | Comments: 2

Take this however you want.

The boy was born in darkness. That’s where he lived. He had never given it a second thought, not for all the time he’d been there. He could see, mind you, not like we do, but with his hands, and his ears, and his nose, and his flesh. His world, a world we would be lost in, was so much more than darkness to him. For, darkness is not nothing. It is merely dark.

Whether his eyes had gone blind or not was up to speculation, but regardless, one day he saw something. And how do you describe something such as this when you’ve never seen, dreamt, or experienced it before in your life? Perhaps it’s a bit like this.

Blinding. How is it, is anything, blinding to someone who can’t, or rather, hasn’t ever seen? It was harsh. A rough, dull and piercing pain. Light, as it was light, seemed to penetrate deep into the recess of his skull and burn his eyes.

It wasn’t hot, but a gentle warmth, unlike that of the steam-springs, washed over him, comforting him while his eyes screamed in protest, beleaguered and ill-equipped for such a thing.

But curiousity got the best of him. He had explored his whole life, searching and exploring his environment in the ways he knew best. So, obviously, when he attempted to grasp the light to determine its nature, he failed.

This confused and upset the boy. How could this new thing exist and yet not be tangible? But that was not right, he thought. He could feel it warm on his skin, but why, then, could he not hold it? The boy left and returned to the light many times after, but never discovered the origin of this light. So many long hours passed of his puzzling on it, but he never realized what it was.

What he did find, however, was warmth. A gentle kindness that radiated onto his skin and made him feel loved. It was the embrace of something he had never known, but was lucky enough to spend his last moments in.

It was a Mother’s love.

Archives | Older: Drawing Harvest 13, 11-19-08
Newer: Lack of Internet, Lack of Posting

TrackBack URI Blog Responses (0)

Post a Text Comment Text Comments (2)

  1. I read this a couple times, and then thought about it for a while, and then read it a couple more times. And I’m still not sure what to make of it.
    It’s sort of fun to speculate on the wonder of the experience of a new sense.
    I’m not sure whether this was intended as a metaphor for anything in particular, or nothing at all. ‘Take this however you want’ suggests that you maybe had something in mind, but are deliberately vague and open to any interpretation the audience finds or brings along?
    There certainly are many possibilities. The first that came to me was birth, and it remains the strongest. I like the image of a a painful but comforting birth as the ‘last moments’ of a life emerging from darkness.

    [how do you feel about feedback on language/style? there were a few parts that were a bit rough. dunno if you’re interested in working on this piece any more…

    spambot — 12/10/08 @ 11:06 am | #Link | Reply

  2. @spambot: Sure, I’d love to hear more about language and style. This piece really was a spur of the moment sort of thing, but I always tend to enjoy criticism.

    Thanks for the comment! I hadn’t quite thought of it like that, actually.

    Alar — 12/10/08 @ 1:39 pm | #Link | Reply

Leave a comment:

If this is your first time commenting, it will not display immediately.
Some XHTML Allowed: <b></b> <i></i> <a href=""></a> <abbr title=""></abbr> <blockquote></blockquote>

Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional
Valid CSS!
Dreams of the Quill Circle		 some pages may not validate. dotq.org is hosted by godaddy and runs wordpress, phpbb, and pmwiki.
dotq [dreams of the quill] copyright 2005-2009 flak. stealing minds is bad, bad karma.
dotq subscribes to things like stopping spying and awesome open source applications.
DotQ.org Main Site RSS
DotQ.org Comments RSS
DotQ.org Forums RSS