Dark Rear View

Looking back on my life I see a long, dark highway stretching into infinity. Along this dismal road there are very few street lamps to guide the weary traveler, and those illuminated stretches are the least dangerous. The real danger lies in the deepest blackness. Remorsefully I gaze into what was long ago and see the bleak void yawning precariously before me, tempting me down into its warm familiarity. Most often I have will enough to resist the seductive song of that Siren; sometimes I do not.

I wander down that lonesome road, unable to alter my course, as that which has been cannot be altered. I am drawn into the night, away from the light I so desperately desired when I first trod this path, but I am powerless, defenseless. My vision is useless as the ebony envelops me, seeping into every pore to infect my spirit once more. I bask in the pain and the misery, for I am Home. Resigned to my fate I move to embrace my new, old friend to whom I have come to talk yet again.

But something stops me. It is a voice. A call in the night, soft but strong, miles distant but hot in my ear; like my own, yet different.

“When you return, as you always do, I will be waiting, as I always am.”

I turn, looking in vain for the source of the sound.  Tears form in my unseeing eyes, falling soundlessly into the midnight in which I am surrounded.  My heart aches desperately for the owner of the voice.  I yearn to return from whence I came, to her.  But where is she?

“Oh dear God…PLEASE!” I cry, but the echo is stolen by the vacuum.  I have nearly lost all control when something akin to vision returns.  All that is before me is a small dot of light.  I focus my eyes, realizing that the light is the voice is she.  Slowly I had been drawn into the depths of dark despair against my will.  Now I run freely back to her, to bathe in her light, to revel in her closeness, to recline in her comfort, to love her.  We embrace, and I have returned.

And her words were true…