Blinded

         There is darkness everywhere. I cannot look without seeing nothingness, and for this I keep my eyes closed. It is better, I have found, to at least be allowed this small measure of control.
         I have many regrets in my life, of that there can be no denying. I have alienated the few people who would have me, I have turned my back on the one thing that I believed in, truly, passionately even, in my youth. But of all the losses that I have faced, of the love unrequited and the time wasted, the worst of all has been this complete and total lack of sight. I would be able to live with every demon that I have, were I just given the ability to see once more.
         We all feel it, for truly it is something that is felt, rather than seen or unseen. The darkness reaches beyond the eyes, into the backs of our minds, hiding our morals, our faiths, our collective sense of security. The world over, and perhaps farther, there is blackness, whole and unyielding, that starves us.
         They say that it has been 22 days since the last light fled from the planet, vanishing all at once, as if all the street lamps and telephones, the flashlights, the stars, were all connected to a single switch that was suddenly flicked off. Of course, without the sun, I do not know why they would bother keeping track of the time. For posterity, perhaps, should the light ever return. But it cannot, regardless of what we do. That is the one thing of which I remain certain. We brought this upon ourselves, and now we are reaping the reward.
         I regret it immensely, more often than my peers, I think. I regret it especially. I feel total bitterness and hatred, for when the last stone was thrown among the feet of our gods, mine remained firmly and properly in my own hand. It was not our place to judge, to act, upon those final impulses, and I screamed it from the mountaintops that we all must abstain, and forgive. But my cry fell upon deaf ears, and now they have been given blind eyes to match. We all have.
         He was a man, just like ourselves. He was a man, imperfect upon creation, uncertain of his future, and in many respects, a better man than the rest of us. He knew where he stood, he knew what he believed, and he knew where to draw a line in the sand. He loved, more completely than I ever did, and for that we scorned him. Impure, it was called. To love a woman is traditional, a fellow man, controversial. But to love as he did, impossible. It could not be allowed. And it wasn’t.
         It gained momentum, as these things predictably do, but even more so. It started as an idea, it spread rapidly, and it formed into a proposal. An argument followed from both sides, neither concerned with protecting a man’s rights, but rather with keeping their own interests intact. Logic was lost, and with it, all hope. I should have stopped it, and perhaps I could have. He was a marked man, and for all of my talk, then as well as now, of living peacefully, I watched as they preyed upon him, moved against him, and beat him to death. They beat his body with their clubs, his beliefs with their fire. They destroyed all that he ever was, and for that, we were blinded. Cast into darkness, for getting rid of a man who so openly proclaimed his love of all life, in every form.
         I read, a long time ago, of churches and even entire societies dedicated to similar ideas. Every man is your brother, and all life is sacred, or something along those lines. They were free to say these things, back when the freedom of expression was often treated as an obvious, almost innate feature of our world. They went to pray with others who shared this sort of philosophies, back when praying was allowed, even encouraged.
         We turned our backs on our laws, and chaos reigned. We turned our backs on our Gods, and morality was shaken. But we survived, even thrived, together. We were logical, we were unyielding in our unity, and we began to live, functionally, with little emotion. We pressed on with no society, no worship, no communities. And we were fine, better than fine at times. We relied on our intellect above all else, and lived individually. Yet, having discarded all deities, we were punished by an act of God when we decided to turn upon our fellow man, and upon love.
         I never used to walk anywhere, but now I walk for hours on end. It’s the only outlet that I have for staving off the resentment and sadness that often threaten to crush me. It is difficult to keep my mind occupied with nothing to see and, now that the city is abandoned, nothing to hear and no one to meet. I walk until my feet begin to throb, and then I turn around and walk home, counting the steps. I hold a ball of yarn, like some bizarre, paraphrased Hansel, so as not to get lost. I get a little farther every time, or so I have forced myself to believe. I hope that one day I will have the strength to walk until I cannot walk any more, and then keep walking. I hope one day to reach the end of my rope, and then to be able to let go.
         I hope some day to walk until I find the light.