No Angel Came

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2003-10-06 - 1:22 p.m.
The indoor dusk made me paranoid. My eyes refused to focus on such an atmosphere where there were no fine lines, no definition, only a blur of fading unknown. The kitchen, typically in sterile white, had traded its light for forest greens and navy obscured by the darkness, but not ordinary darkness. It was thick and disorienting, uncomfortable like midnight fog on chill mountain roads. Nothing would penetrate here, and I staggered, searching for the lightswitch. I found it with a sense of relief. There was a presence, something was here, something unkind. It didn't come to surprise me that the florescent bastard would not cooperate. Desperation ran through my veins. My skin crawled with every movement of the air I could not justify. Again I tried with the light and still nothing. In frustration I flipped it on and off repeatedly and anger began to fight with fear, both wishing to dominate my too active mind. I could see the bulb was getting power. Faint aritificial light was visible at the ends of the coiled bulb, but it would not flow true. So now, where could I hide if it hadn't found me already?

I crept to the bedroom, flipped the switch and was greeted by one dim lightbulb amongst five dead. It couldn't be right, and yet the one bulb seemed to fade as I stood there. To my left, a desk of lightbulbs, some in the box, others out, and nothing to tell me which have already had their final moments of true life. I grabbed one and leapt on the bed, hands moving too fast to be efficient with adrenaline screaming through me, my body outrunning my mind. The dead bulbs were hot to touch as if recently deceased, but the heat was easily ignored through the desperation. The bulb came out. I fiddled with the replacement, couldn't keep it steady, couldn't screw it in, couldn't focus. All I wanted was some light, some definition in this world, and my enemy was here, had been there all along, watching me. It was the suffocating darkness, the black fog that surrounded me, that filled my lungs..And I am drowning, succumbing..Because the light I fight for is artificial.