The Speed of Darkness

The bus begins to reverse away from The Terminal. I feel an ache grow in my teeth that stretches into my jaw. It feels like all of my teeth have come a little bit loose and an invisible hand is working them free. The pain spreads to my finger and toe nails, rooted at their base. It's like the worst growing pain I've ever felt. All of space contracts, the front of the bus shoots out the back of the bus and the back is at the front. I have twenty fingers on four hands and my vision has split into four as well. The strain is hard on me, but it isn't as bad as the earlier trans-liminal leaps that the bus made. The Terminal, or getting to the terminal seemed to have inoculated me to the physics of this place. When everything straightened out and went back to a version of normal we were nowhere near The Terminal. I no longer recognized anything in this city. It was no longer mine. No longer the home I had known. It was becoming easier to accept that. I had no idea how long I'd been here, how far we'd travelled, but none of that seemed to matter anymore. My thoughts turned back to the poor soul at The Terminal. The person who was accosted and mutilated by the driver. She had consumed some part of him. Taken him in. There was a little pleasure in it for her, you could tell and it got me thinking about him again. The nights we got rough with one another and the nights we got 'rough' with one another if you know what I mean. I wondered allowed, "is this what it was like for him? To lose bits of himself? What does that pain feel like when you're losing a key part of yourself to someone who only lives for their own self interests? Taking and taking and taking. I was never really good at giving it seems. But was I that bad, that selfish and consuming? It was almost like she was inhaling his soul, as if it were a drug. It occurred to me that, I should probably be more fearful of her. What if I was next? But that emotional response never came. I just wasn't worried for some reason because he didn't seem to be interested in me in that way.

I couldn't turn my mind away from the idea that the driver had consumed a soul. Soul. Was it confirmation that I am delusional? Or that there is more to the world than what we perceive? I've always enjoyed the idea that the soul exists, but I never really understood it. It was always fun fantasy to think that there was something else. Something deeper and more meaningful. More connected to the Earth and the Universe than just simply being and procreating, continuing the species as it were. But this couldn't be anything more than a bad dream with some good parts. Ah, there is the rub; good parts. What is wrong with me? Everything here has been a horror show. What does it say about me that I'm romanticizing a lost love in a place that is completely twisted and black? What would my soul even look like? If he was right, that I never cared about anything or anyone but myself, what would my soul look like? Would I even still have one?

The sights of this insane city blurred past, the lights like comet tails. With a slight jolt bus began to slow. The buildings here were grand cathedral style adorned with fierce gargoyles that shifted and crawled along the parapets and towers, with horned and spiked jet marquees with white text above their front entrances displaying shows called The Second Death of a Salesman's Soul, Lord of the Flies with the symbol of Beelzebub , and Cotton Mathers' The Crucible. Giant posters on each of them advertising their shows as Theatre of the Absurd or Theatre of Cruelty, "Watch, as your flesh is disrupted and stripped away!" one poster claimed. Another stated, "A sensory experience that will leave you soulless!"

We loved the theatre, he and I. We would go almost every Friday night to see a show. If nothing new was on, we'd watch our favourite shows again and again. The performances were always so invigorating and gave us things to talk about all weekend, especially if there was a new actress or if the show was just starting, we'd get tickets to the Preview. Previews were great, because sometimes you'd catch mistakes and missed cues. On occasion you can see the players with nerves because they were still a step away from figuring out a last line or block before the official opening night. We'd gossip all weekend among ourselves or with friends.

One night we were headed down to see a show, I can't recall which one. It was a cold night and sleet was falling periodically. The streets were full of slush. We were in a great mood despite the weather, we hadn't had a fight in days and we were really excited to see the show, I remember that much. We were laughing and full of a jovial humour. "With drops of Jupiter in her hair, hey, hey. She acts like summer and walks like rain reminds me that there's a-time to change, hey, hey."

The bus stopped at a platform between theatres. The doors of the theatre burst open and out flow more of those creatures. These ones are less cracked as if seeing some sort of entertainment keeps them together. Despite their more whole appearance they are still obsidian and they are crashing out of those doors like a Black Friday mob.

"Did you make it to the milky way to see the lights all faded? And that heaven is overrated? That night, in the cold and the sleet, I managed to step in a puddle of slushy water. It immediately soaked through my shoe and soaked my sock. It was freezing. We laughed because, of course I did. I was always such a klutz. He offered to carry me and of course we both knew he couldn't, he was far too slender. We also knew, that if he could have, he would have. He was a chivalrous man. So we laughed again and made more jokes and continued to laugh in spite of the fact that we hadn't made it to the theatre yet and I was going to have to sit through an entire show with my foot wet and freezing. When we finally made it to the theatre the line for tickets was through the doors and out onto the street. We joined it on the sidewalk. A moment later an older couple squeezed their way in front of us. I wanted to say something but he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. He felt that there might be a reason for their rudeness and in light of their age and the weather maybe it we should just let it go. See? Chivalrous. Someone else spoke up on our behalf any way, they told the couple they couldn't cut in the line and to get to the back, that we were waiting for some time and were now soaked. That they were incredibly rude, but they ignored them as city people are so good at doing.

The mob coming out of theatre were tearing at each other to get ahead. They were breaking each other apart, cracks were forming in their obsidian skin with the same faint red glow emanating from between the fault lines just like the others I'd seen on the way to the terminal. What was happening to people? They used to look after one another. Stand up for one another. Everything and everyone has devolved into hateful, mindless monsters. But these creatures, these people are different from that which the driver molested at The Terminal. I wondered why that was? Who were they?

They swarmed the bus shoving at it and rocking it on its axels. They were trying to tip it. To roll it over. Why were we even stopped here? I didn't want to end up like one of them, or like the poor body that the driver dragged out. "Can we get moving? They're making me nervous." All I cared about was not ending up like those charred things outside. I wasn't even thinking about where I was headed anymore. I had completely forgotten. I was enamoured with the city and its inhabitants. But that wasn't really it. I didn't know it yet but the darkness had crept in. This was becoming normal. What I was doing previous, where I was, who I was were nearly gone. It is an incredible struggle now to recall any of this. A great effort.

Remember space. How odd it is. It is intangible and yet it shapes you like a hammer and an anvil. I had gone so far from where I was who I was. I was changing somehow. Losing things to the darkness. It is faster than light and it has a tighter grip on reality than we'd like to give it credit for. Darkness is not only faster, but it can hold onto light forever. So which is it that really shapes our reality? Light gives us borders and boundaries, defines the edges. Darkness, on the other hand erases the borders and boundaries. It is liberating. It is all space and it is expanding. Us with it.