Page 95 of Light in the Dark
I want out of the darkness. I want to see him. Talk to him. I want to remember.
But something in the darkness isn't ready.
I go back under, but this time it feels more like drowning.
* * *
The silence is not totallysilent this time.
There are faint sounds—the beeps, the hisses, the squeaks of shoes, the murmur of voices.
The darkness isn't totally dark anymore, either. It's…filtered. Not absolute black but a fluttering haze.
A word pops into my head:Eigengrau. Intrinsic gray. The specific kind of darkness perceived when eyes are closed.
Beep—beep—beep—beep.
A latch clicking—hinges creaking quietly—the latch clicking again.
A faint sound—hard to identify; a chair settling as it adjusts to weight.
“Hey, Em." Felix. He sounds tired. "I've sorta run outta things to say, so I, um, I sorta went through some of your things and found a book that it seems like you really like. Thought I'd read it to you."
Felix clears his throat.
"Uh, okay. I'm not great at reading out loud, so just…y'know, bear with me." Another nervous throat clearing. "'I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead…"
Heartache blazes through me—sickening and vicious and boiling and acidic.
Dean.
Marylou.
That prose, that voice, the sense of adventure and the joy of traveling.
Reading it out loud. Back and forth—me and him. I'd read a page or two or ten, and then he’d read.
Him—not Felix.
Someone else.
Who?
The darkness disgorges a name: Dutchie.
Dutchie and I read this book to each other. Not just once, but…so many times. It's like an old friend. One you’ve been through so much shit with, you've argued with them, fought bitterly even, but always find a way to mend the breaks, forget the nasty words and sharp retorts. Because that friend justknowsyou.
Felix keeps reading, and I could almost recite the next words for him.
The hurt is massive and magnificent—deep and sharp and potent. But…it's a beautiful kind of pain. I don't shy away from it as Felix reads Dutchie's and my book to me. I embrace it. I can almost feel Dutchie somewhere within the dense, star-bright center of the pain.
I can almost hear him. His voice is the silent brief pauses between Felix's words, the swift intake of breath.
The dark thins. The hazy flutter shades from eigengrau to a less intrinsic gray, to a low shadowy yellowish wash over my eyelids.
He reads well, despite his word of warning. Slow but fluent, carefully handling each word, cautiously enunciating each sentence. Felix reads and reads, pausing to drink something, to turn pages with a flapping rustle of paper.
I want him to stop.
