Shadows

The room is black. Black curtains, black sheets. Wood stained black, scuffed from black shoes peeking out of black pants.

The darkness is a blanket, a cocoon, preventing any stimuli from impeding the sound constantly streaming into my ears.

I hear voices—beautiful ones. I listen to them talk, sometimes all at once. I hope to catch one I recognize. Rewind, replay, rewind, replay until the voices get fuzzy and I move on.

They are recordings from Before. All I have left. I am all that is left.

Noise, but not just noise. A fluid stream of voices, laughter, songs, shrieks, groans. Melodious in their innocuousness. Extraordinary; painful.

To hear voices from Before means I can remain in it, one foot in the past, ignoring the After. It’s dark, I can’t see, therefore what I hear is the only reality. These tapes could be live—they could be alive. I might not be all that’s left.

One black shoe in the darkness. One pulling me towards the light.

Stars are the only light I let in. Each night, I pull back my own black curtain to reveal another, smothering everything I used to know. Night is most of the day now; it’s as if the sky did not want to acknowledge the After, either.

In black ink, I write. Waves of ink pour upon pages so soft and translucent it’s as if closing the book will make my story disappear. Words anchor me to the light; I get stuck in them. Thick, gelatinous words. Memories cling to me, and I peel them off, gently placing them back where they belong. Between the nearly invisible pages.

Too sticky, I think. Words are too sticky. Let’s go back to the stars.

“Cy is gone, I don’t know where,” says a voice between my ears.

They’re talking about me. Rewind. Replay. Rewind. Replay.

Soon the darkness is blinding. My ears bleed from the audible anchors dug too deep inside my head and heart. If I pause, I’m afraid I will forget. If I pause, I’m afraid I will remember.

One minute they’re laughing. The next, they are not.

Silence.

Heavy as the darkness.

It is the After. The black ink is still in my black pen and I open the black curtains to reveal the sun. It is blinding. Like the darkness.

But I adjust. And step both feet into the After.