Darkness Until Dawn

     Suddenly, she was back in the green tiled shower, the scalding water flowing, the steam in her eyes. She worked some shampoo into her hair as the heat embraced her, and soaked some of the lavender soap her mother brought for her into the wash cloth, patiently scrubbing her body clean. She was one of God’s flowers. He would provide her with the soil to nourish her, the rain to refresh her, and the light to replenish her. Her duty in return was to love Him and praise Him in everything she did. He gave her her eyes, so she opened them. He gave her her smile, so she shared it. Everything she had on this Earth was granted to her by the one true God, not for her to keep, but for her to give. And so she challenged her mind. And so she cared for her body. Even when she grieved, she reminded herself that God had a purpose in all this, even if she didn’t know it, or understand it.      They told her that she should not talk to Candy. That Candy was not real. But...

 A Fall Evening, 1996… The winds of late September were here, and the night was falling fast. As the day retreated, the shadows crept in, and amongst them I felt as if I belonged, a mere shadow amongst shadows. But I was en route to a much different place, admittedly with great reluctance. They asked me here, and so I came, neither interested nor disinterested in the event in question but merely compliant, because other than the shadows and constructs of my mind, they were my only true friends. And yet, from over a mile away, the roar could be heard, and I braced myself for the sensory assault that was R.S. Vann football. This was no small event, but something that was taken very seriously by nearly all of the Vann parents and students. As we made our way into the crowded parking lot, the glare of the powerful halogen floodlights was an unstoppable force, cutting through the night and granting the event the brightness of day. But my sight was not the only of my senses to be overw...

Edward Ward was a hard man. His stubbornness had led him to a place that not many black men had arrived: the physician's staff of Memorial. His head was bald, his eyes deep, he had a hard skull. He was built like a Mason, but through long hour of study his flesh had contracted somewhat to a lean and wiry frame. He could see. He could complexity in natures. History can be denial so easily. Fear can be resentment in a heartbeat. He knew he had eyes on him, and why not? He didn't exactly fit in. His skin was dark, the color of ebony. But he trusted the system, despite evidence to the contrary he needed to believe. They ran around him, but not over him. They knew better. He had paid his dues. Now he was assigned to the Psychiatry unit down by Memorial. He had lived for a while in a house off the motor mile. Then things got complicated.  She had meant so much to him. They had been through highs and lows. Through so many surprises and setbacks. Helen. He had asked her to marry him. I...

Middle of August... mid 1990s... Gray sky... a slow gust of wind carrying a cloud of leaves... they rise and dance and run away... He looked up again and saw a flight of birds cutting the sky. He did not want to go. He did not want to stay. It was just past 7 A.M. He shifted his feet, looking up and down the road waiting for the vessel that would bring him down the street and towards the new place of learning. See, he had wanted to go to the local school. Just a mile away. It wasn't up to him. He remembered what had happened at the place before. He remembered just how dark it had become. He had played with fire before. The anger was catching up. As a child, he didn't think it could be so complicated. That was supposed to come later. There was a lot to prove.  Fire was a release. Oh he liked to see it burn. The light brought him comfort. The warmth was so soothing. Sometimes, he would get with friends and they would steal some liquor. Never really thought to drink it. But boy di...

  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...

Hope in God. If you have good hope and faith in Him, you shall be delivered from your enemies. Diamond opened her eyes to darkness. The dream I had been chasing was a soft one, of a past that never was. Sweet, the flickers of something warm and heartening. I dreamt of the life I thought was mine, until my nemesis opened my eyes. Sometimes I can feel him whispering into my thoughts, and like a warrior in mortal combat I rage against him with all my strength, and yet I cannot expel him. He is insidious. He is everywhere. But He will not defeat me. The dream was so vivid, and for a few moments I hold fiercely to the fading images. If only I could dream whilst awake, I would never let that vision pass. But my eyes began to adjust, bringing me back to a place familiar and comforting in the strange way that prison walls are comforting to someone too long behind locked doors. The room is small and dark, and sparsely furnished. There are no pictures on the walls, no knickknacks. The sheets of ...

July was fading into August and the growing detachment inside of her was something she still didn’t understand. All she knew was, the farther away from home she got, the less she felt, and if she didn’t stop moving soon she’d feel nothing at all. She was searching for somewhere She had been in the game long enough to know the rules. She had bounced from one foster home to another and yet the only home she truly knew was the one place they wouldn’t take her. After they took her away, for about the first 6 months or more she didn’t get it. She just was the same little Annie she had always been… waiting to be taken back home to her family. Then reality caught up. She realized not just that she was never going back, but that these homes that they took her to were not interested in little Annie. No, they all had their own expectations and motives. So she finally began to pretend. She would pretend to be what they wanted in the hope that they would leave her alone. She surprised herself at h...