Knowing the Narcissist : The Darkness
Do you feel the darkness as it coils about you? Do you see those midnight black tendrils as they slither towards you? Do you recognise that encroaching cloak of nothingness as it begins to wrap around you? Do you see how the inky murk blots out parts of your life as your friends become obscured by the gathering darkness? Have you any idea what is waiting for you in the shade as the pools of despair begin to form at your feet? Can you feel the icy embrace as the levels of gloom start to rise, swallowing you up bit by bit? Are you aware of the advancing chasm as it swallows up your family, wrenching them away from you consigning them to oblivion?
The engulfing darkness causes them to vanish and even their desperate cries and shouts become muffled and then extinguished. Do you remember what held your interest before this fog arrived? Can you recall those hobbies and past times that entertained you and gave you a sense of who you were as you enjoyed engaging in them and with other people? Can you or is the fog too thick so that you doubt if you ever did undertake them at all? Have you noticed how the air has become thicker and cloyed with poison or do you breathe it in oblivious to the toxicity that comes with it? Are you aware how the twilight has percolated into your ears so that everything you hear has become twisted and distorted? Do you recognise what is patently before you or do the shadowy shapes and figures make little sense when they once did?
Have you realised that your words have become dust in your mouth as the fur of the darkness fills your mouth and slides down your throat, strangling the sounds you try to make? Do you feel the icy embrace of this impenetrable wall of darkness which advances to you and over you? Do you recognise this glacier of despair as it slides over you, subsuming you and sucking you deep inside, preserving you in a dark, icy tomb? Do you even see your reflection in the mirror anymore or has that become masked in darkness too, the glass dulled so that everything becomes obscured and shows something else entirely?
Do you see those shades which come and torment you, their sinewy fingers pulling at you as they strip you piece by piece of what you are? Do you observe these wraiths as they devour you, sucking what you are into their dark maws? How does it feel as this corrupting night brings permanent darkness to your world? Do you see how nothing grows anymore when touched by the gloomy taint? Do you smell that foul stench which accompanies this unending blanket of murk?
The acrid fumes which waft into your nostrils and eradicate anything sweet and pleasant. Do you notice how your tongue lies flat and useless in your mouth, little more than a cold slab? Do you even acknowledge how everything tastes like ash? Do you feel the leaden weight of this darkness pulling at you, slowing you and seeking to engulf you? Do you recognise how it prevents you from breaking free, this glue-like morass which has fastened on to you and will not yield?
Do you notice the fatigue that now wraps around you, leeching at your energy and vitality? Do you hear anything other than the whispers of malevolent control that rattle about your beleaguered brain? Do you know who you are or has this vast amorphous darkness eradicated your sense of being?
Do you remember what it was to feel uplifted, joyous and happy or have you become accustomed to the flat, perilous embrace of this total darkness?
Do you even feel anything anymore other or has the cosseting black cloud anaesthetised you, numbing and freezing?
Do you feel the darkness? No, you never do.
You never see the darkness until you have seen the light.
What I miss most… is my childhood.
Behind me from my childhood.
Behind my childhood sister.
Behind my childhood mum.
Our holy trinity.
Behind the smell of kindergarten crayons from my childhood, when I was crying, when we moved to a bigger city and I had to leave them (sometimes I can still this smell, it’s identical to the smell of burnt rubber, when someone brakes too hard, and I inhale the air like crazy then).
Behind the feeling of security, when I was hugging my teddy bear (the only and most beloved, long-term companion, who has been resting in a well-deserved retirement in a souvenir closet for over 30 years).
Behind the feeling of winning from my childhood, when I was the first to circle the garden, along the route set by my grandfather (I was on doping – I always imagined a witch chasing me 🙂 ).
Behind waiting for bread fried with sugar, which my grandmother used to make (there was a lot of poverty in our country at that time).
Behind eating chives and peas straight from the garden.
Behind the feeling of fear and adventure as I wandered into the farthest corner of the garden.
Behind the feeling of tender joy, when my mother finally picked me up from kindergarten and I grabbed her hand.
I miss the light from the street lamp, that streamed through the curtains and drapes in our nursery window and spread out in diffuse, subdued light on the ceiling.
Behind crazy joy, when father (stepfather) agreed to buy us a dog and we went to pick a puppy from a litter of small, warm, mischievous dachshunds (we chose the one who started pulling my father’s trouser leg, and he was doing it as fiercely as if he was at least Don Quixote 🙂).
Behind my dreams, then.
Behind…
But that will NEVER happen again.
That’s why people reproduce, want to have children and grandchildren…
Yesterday morning, when I was walking down a rainy street, overwhelmed by the weight of shopping I was carrying, a woman and a man with their granddaughter passed by. The girl in a sweet voice, gently shouted: “Grandpa, grandpa, wait. Grandpa, wait for me!” to a man 3 meters away from her, smiling at her, saying something in a soft, warm voice, and extending his arms to her in response.
A feeling of joyful tenderness filled my heart and my face became one big, tender smile. I was still smiling, when they had long since disappeared behind my back. The burden of shopping and physical pain disappeared completely.
My smile was not even marred by the unpleasant and impatient voice of the same man, when he spoke to his wife, nor by his furtive glance at me, whether I noticed this change of tone and whether it affected my judgment of the scene I noticed (as an casual witness).
——-
Darkness – sometimes I feel it, but it is distracted by such “rays of the sun”. Events that remind me of warmth, tenderness, trust. Events that make me, for a moment, that little girl from years ago again.
Joa this is beautiful, thank you for writing it.
Thank you EveBea.
I just throw it outside 🙂