Child of the Dark

As I lie on my death's bed, I strangely recollect the fables of my youth. The bizarre, twisted, but so lovely tales told to me by the elders in our family group. As children we have all heard them, and some of us even believed; however, with adulthood we set aside the ridiculous legends of our youth. Even so, there are some adults who believed the folklore to an almost religious margin. They find strength and peace in them, as I am beginning to, here in the final chapter of my life.

In their stories, the elders would speak of a world called the outside. They told of vast open areas, carpeted with a living green substance they called grass. Solid structures (I forget the name they gave them) holding something called leaves, stood scattered throughout this land. Some were said to be only knee-high, while others were as tall as twenty or thirty men. But men didn't build them - they were created by a great force called "nature." The grand-elders told of how something called a breeze ran through these structures. To me it sounded as if the breeze was a magical being; it was an invisible temperament that could pass right through a person and cool him when he was hot, or bite him when he was cold. I wish that I could experience a breeze before I die.

I was told of a light, not like the dim olin rocks that I read and write by, but a light so bright that it hurt to look at it. This light gave off heat and it tanned the skin. The light shone on everything as it sat in what the elders called a sky. The sky, I suppose, was something like a high ceiling that changed colors. It was said to be blue one minute and gray the next, and sometimes water poured from it. The great light moved across the sky and hid for a while so people could sleep. In doing so it created something called a night, which I'm told is the opposite of another something called a day. If such a time did exist, I imagine that the people of that time had trouble keeping up with all of the things that were taking place.

Peter, the oldest person I have ever met, told me that when he was a child he had seen the outside. He said he remembered when someone had broken through the great wall, where an entrance from the outside once stood. The door was left there for five years, in case an outsider made his way to our world; after that our founding elders ordered it sealed, and the great wall was the result. As Peter told the story, the man who had broken through the entrance had at one time lived on the outside. He had never totally adjusted to his new environment. His longing for the outside world had driven him crazy. In one totron cycle (24 hours), the man had managed to make an opening in the wall, where the entrance was, big enough for him to crawl through. Peter, who had visited the wall regularly as a boy - mainly because his mother had brought him in while he was still in her stomach, and his father had died on the outside - saw the man as he opened the entrance door. A blinding flood of light bolted from the hole in the wall. Peter said that even though it was severely painful to look at, he could not take his eyes off the beam of light that appeared to be solid. He stood mesmerized as he watched the man crawl through the opening onto the white sand, where the man's body started to melt. Peter felt the heat as the man's skin turned from red to black. The horrid smell of burning flesh had just started to reach Peter when someone closed the door. Peter remained standing, eyes transfixed on the hole, but he saw nothing, for the light had blinded him indefinitely. He told me that the image of the burning man, and the hideous screams of torment, were forever branded into his mind.

Peter also told me that people lived to be even older than he was. He said he had heard of a man who lived to be thirty-six. I find it hard to believe. But all the fables are hard for the thinking adult to swallow.
I suppose the most unbelievable tale of all is that once men and women could survive without the masks. It's been said that on the outside, before it passed on, people could breathe freely without the aid of a Com-pose mask. Their skin was colored by the big light, and people grew strong. I would like to have seen these lively looking people. If they did exist, they must have been gods.

As I grew into adolescence, in my fifth year of life I began to question the fables told by the elders. I boldly asked them, "If the outside was so great, what happened? A war, or something?"

They would reply, "No. Once land was against land, and each had weapons that could destroy the other. But before they did, each destroyed themselves. All of these great men and women, who had such a wonderful gift, misused it and neglected it. They continued to take from their beautiful world, and never gave anything back. Soon, their air was no longer fit to breathe, and the great light began to grow hotter. Great bodies of water dried up. As their world began to rebel, the people tried to save it, but it was beyond repair. Millions of the outside people died, and what was left built inside worlds like this one. And though thousands flooded into our world, now only a few hundred individuals survive, and no one knows how many, if any, other inside worlds still exist."

Some of the elders believed that maybe one day the outside world will repair itself, and allow life to flourish there again. Unfortunately, they also believed, when that day finally comes, none of our world will believe that an outside world really exists. And if anyone ever did discover it, especially one as frail and night-sighted as we, he would never be able to survive.

On my twentieth birthday, I knew death was not far away. Even the strongest of us rarely live longer than twenty-one years, and the lives of our women are shorter still, for none lived after giving birth. Bearing a child is a death sentence for a woman; however, most of them cheerfully sacrifice themselves for the existence of our species. The newborn babies are left for the younger females to raise, resulting in most males, like myself, experiencing our final years alone, without a female companion.

Before I felt the full effects of my age, I began to travel regularly to the great wall. On my visits I would place my hands and face against the barrier. Then I would close my eyes and feel for a breeze. Sometimes I would imagine one magically coming through the wall and filling my soul. I could feel the cool freedom that came with it.
So many stories were told to me in my youth. I am sorry that I can only remember but a few; even then I can't actually comprehend any of them, for I was born in this dark world. A world with no big light and no breeze. Our faces bear no color except for the black masks we wear. So I only try to construct simple images to fit the words of my elders, who have long since fallen victim to the beast we call death.

Now that the dark creature comes for me, I want to believe in the outside world. I want to believe that when my physical body perishes that my spirit will be allowed to travel beyond these walls, and into an outside world that is as beautiful as the elders once told all the excited children it was. I want to run with the free-spirited breeze. To pass through the strong people of that world. Maybe I could leave thoughts in their minds - leave the desire to take care of their precious gift - to nurture and respect it - let them feel the sadness that I and the children of the dark feel - the emptiness we experience - oh, how I want to make them see - to understand - to change, before it is too late - then maybe no one will have to wear these damn masks.

Only one man's foolish dream, an unjustified hope. I suppose the reason I wrote this is that I don't want the people to forget. If ever there is a day when the outside is inhabited again, I just want the new generations to respect and honor their gift. To learn from the mistakes of the first outsiders.

So with all said and done, my soul emptied, I shall continue dying.
To the insiders I say, "Adieu."