Darkness Until Dawn

  The voice on the phone was familiar to him and still talking, but he had stopped listening several minutes ago. She obviously didn't realize this because the cadence did not change. He was far away, floating somewhere far above where he lay sprawled on the floor, his tense hand still clutching the cold receiver in some sort of karate death grip. His breaths were slow and shallow, his body motionless, and from the vacant look in his eye, one might mistake him for dead and gone. But Eddie was very much alive on a physical level, even if emotionally he was numb. He could still hear her words in the distance. He didn't really need to hear them. He knew what the message was. In some sense he had seen this coming. He never acknowledged it, of course, but the gnawing dread, the feeling of falling, had been there in the background for quite some time. The words themselves were unimportant and expected, words like "time", "space", and "different". Yet s...

I found them easily enough. In the years after I left home, I spent my time exploring the world. I had been far too sheltered for too long. I wanted to know for myself how the world worked. I know they thought they were helping me by keeping hidden away and presenting a false facade to the world. In the end they could maintain the illusion without my ever being there at all. I made the choice to be real. I made the choice to leave. Was it easier to play along? Definitely. But if you ask me if it was a mistake to leave, I’ll tell you the truth: the mistake was not leaving sooner. So I traveled (by foot) and observed the world. I took a series of odd jobs. It was amazing to truly experience life rather then be instructed on what life was like. I had heard the word “freedom” many times before but never truly knew what it felt like.  I was on my way back one day when I came upon them. It was in the old historic district, a place I sometimes visited when I was homesick. The proud old ma...