A Dark Prison

I am deathly afraid of the dark.

Or maybe it's darkness, if there is such a difference.

The idea of the dark and the wretched place it traps me in.

It brings out an involuntary, arresting fear in me. When it descends each night, I can't imagine not being terrified. Then, when the sun rises, I can't imagine how I could be so frightened in the very home that shines with the morning light.

It's part of the reason why I decided to sleep in my cold, powerless home, when just a few miles away -- at my in-laws' house -- I had the comfort of power and heat and microwaveable meals and Sportscenter and conversation and security available to me.

The ice storm knocked out power to 700,000 homes in this upper region of South Carolina. Ours was one of them. My family fled to a more-accustomed environment.

I stayed behind. I told myself it was because I didn't want to leave my house vulnerable. That I just liked being there. That I liked the idea of "camping." That I wanted to know what it must be like when less fortunate people must endure the consequences of not having the money to pay their electric bills.

It was none of those.

I wanted to face fear. To face the terror of being alone, with nothing but a few candles and a fireplace to remind me that I am not completely consumed by darkness, both within and without.

It's amazing how quickly you can enter an entirely unfamiliar world. You notice the moon is full. You are kin to the old ages. You hear the ringing of silence in your ears if you pay attention to the absence of sound.

You are a prisoner of your thoughts -- and those thoughts are of the kind that makes it so you must always leave the television on, even when you go to bed, because it signifies that there is some measure of life filling the house.

I suppose I have little faith when light isn't there to guide me. Against all that is natural, I find myself convinced that the sun might not rise.

Time slows down in the dark. The silence is deafening.

It thrusts me into a bizarre world. Not within my house, but within myself. It's a dark place. Darker than the home itself.

The sudden buzz is terrifying. My cell phone is set to vibrate before it rings. On the way home, I had called my friend who lives nearby to tell him that if he and his fiance were cold, I had a fireplace and they could come over and stay somewhat warm.

The phone was vibrating on the kitchen counter, like some kind of bomb or exotic beast prepared to eat me. I felt my lungs abruptly sucking in the cold air.

I didn't want to answer it. Strange. A way out of the world I had plunged myself into, yet I wanted no part of the world I'm used to.

I spoke with him. He had just seen "King Kong."

Movies. Yes, they make those. There is a world out there. And people watch movies. But it is abstract. This is reality. I am reality. And it's just me.

It's time to hang up. Time to return to the darkness. It's why I didn't want to answer the phone.

Sleep mercifully comes. Morning brings cold sunshine. The ice is melting.



I'm not sure what I learned from that night. It might sound to the outside observer to be a strange, trivial matter.

But it changed me in ways that I can't yet explain.

I learned that I am afraid to live inside my own mind.

And that's even more frightening than the darkness.