House of Darkness House of Light (20 page)

“There is in every true woman’s heart a spark of heavenly fire,
which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity but; which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.”

Washington Irving

 
dusk ‘til dawn

“A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways – by a change from light to darkness or
from darkness to light; and he will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul.”

Plato

Twilight was often when it began; a time of day when it becomes night and there will be no halting this natural conversion of light to darkness. Better to embrace an inevitable transition. It was the same time when the spirits began crossing over, in and out of sight as shadows cast by a soft, waning sunlight. Incidents frequently occurred as it became difficult to distinguish what it was one witnessed, as if spirits were taunting mortals with their obscure presence. Apparitions: cries and whispers from beyond; beings who flirt with darkness: beings who exist somewhere, and everywhere, just beyond the speed of light.

Those who made their presence known during the day were mischievous or simply oblivious to the mortals they spooked. Sometimes the manifestations were deliberate in nature, intent upon making a point; sweeping their kitchen floor or changing the station on the stereo. Sometimes the visitations seemed entirely arbitrary, as if they were passing the time by passing through time. The farmhouse; their place in the country, was nothing less than a portal for the immortal. They didn’t seem to have any concept of time in the same way human beings measure existence. Apparently they have no more need of it. However, they did seem to acknowledge the measurement on
this
side of the Universe, stopping a clock at a precise time coinciding with their appearance. Perhaps their marking of time is based upon its significance in their former lives, to the extent that it is used by them as a marker in death.

The one who often made her presence known at night came specifically to frighten; delivering her messages as a warning to those left alone in the dark.
Mortal
fear
is ancient and primal; the visceral reaction exclusive to humans who are terrified by that which they cannot see, due primarily to absence of Light. Yet, in retrospect, the mere existence of these tortured and torturing souls
is
the Light, the proof of something beyond this realm. In light of day and dark of night, they are the source of all Enlightenment.

Night becomes day…then becomes night. A journey the Perron family took through space and time, night and day, year after year, changed each of them in fundamental ways they couldn’t fathom. Becoming increasingly sensitized to their supernatural environment, these individuals assimilated experiences incrementally; accumulating then storing information in memory: the more shocking the encounter, the more vivid the imagery retained for posterity. It becomes a matter of history, even when recalling what one would rather not.

Every upstairs bedroom had a different, rather unique hue, at precisely the same time of day: twilight. All three of the rooms had distinct personalities. The windows were small and each gave the bedroom a quirkiness all its own. Regardless of the season or angle of the Sun, the bedrooms glowed at sunset. Depending on the weather, light at dusk or dawn possessed a magical quality. It was not of this world; it was a Holy Light. Often it appeared to signal their arrival. A vision of a beautiful child wandering through, as if lost in eternity: a mournful soul in search of comfort, calling for her mother. Her pitiful cries brought tears to the eyes of a mortal child who witnessed her pain and could do nothing to help lead her home. Perhaps she
was
home, in another time and space: in another dimension. Could it be a memory so intense, it is capable of transporting her back to the time and space she once occupied in the midst of a life lived in torment? At dawn, with the first glimmer of light at sunrise she would emerge as an opaque shadow huddled in a corner of Cindy’s bedroom, silent and motionless, as if waiting for something or hiding from someone; and then she was gone. Then, at dusk, she would reappear again. What was it about this time of day becoming night and night becoming day which opened a portal to the past as windows into other dimensions? There is no answer to this question, yet it is worthy of posing simply for the sake of exploring those impossibilities which routinely occurred in the house, often on a daily basis.

As the cycle of day into night revolves in perpetuity, momentum by design, dictated by the natural rotation of Earth in the cosmos, something mystical is revealed at the point of transition: at the intersection of life and death. Is this flickering hue of twilight some signal from beyond the grave as spirit travels across the Universe, dancing upon fringes of shadows cresting the horizon? It may be when an intermingling of Spirit occurs, as a molten melding of souls; the time between night and day when corporeal souls become aware of being inextricably entwined with ethereal disincarnates, in loving embrace of those who came before; entangled with and indistinct from one another, yet whole. During these moments a confluence of darkness and light known as dusk and dawn may be precisely what mortal eyes require, so to behold what is always there, just beyond the speed of light, otherwise obscured by a lack of vision. Integration: So I see.

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.”

Mark Twain

The Incendiary

You are completely free of affectation:

silent you sit, watchfully tense,

just as silence itself pretends to nothing

on a starless night in a fire-gutted city.

Consider that city—it is your past,

wherein you scarcely ever managed to laugh,

now raging through the streets, now sunk in self,

between your insurrections and your calms.

You wanted life and gave it all your strength,

but, sullenly spurning everything alive,

this slum of a city suffocated you

with the dreary weight of its architecture.

In it every house was shuttered tight,

in it shrewdness and cynicism ruled,

it never hid its poverty of spirit,

its hate for anyone who wasn’t broken.

And so one night you burned it down

and ran for cover, frightened by the flames,

till chance produced me in your way, the one

you stumbled on when you were fugitive.

I took you in my arms, I felt you tremble,

as quietly your body clung to mine,

not knowing me or caring, but yet,

like an animal, grateful for my pity.

Together then we sallied…where did we go?

Wherever our eyes, in their folly, took us.

But intermittently you had to turn

to watch your past ominously burning.

It burned beyond control, till it was ashes.

And I remain tormented to this day

that you are drawn, as though enchanted,

back to that place where still the embers glow.

You’re here with me, and yet not here.

In fact you have abandoned me. You glide

through the smoldering wreckage of the past,

holding aloft a bluish light in your hand.

What pulls you back? It’s empty and gray there!

Oh the mysterious power of the past!

You never could learn to love it as it was,

but yet you fell madly in love with its ruins.

Ashes and embers must be magnets too.

How can we tell what potencies they hold?

Over what’s left where once she set her fire

the incendiary cries like a little child.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko from:
Stolen Apples

Translated by Stanley Kunitz with Anthony Kahn

~ a mother keeping vigil on the hearthstone ~

“Life is not separate from death. It only looks that way
.”

American Indian Proverb

II.

 
Fire in the Hole

“He was a burning and a shining light.”

John v. 3

With her usual curt impertinence, Nancy stood rigidly in place, hands upon her scrawny hips, deliberately located, so to make a grand proclamation with more panache. “Dad is gonna freak out!” Then for emphasis, as if staking her claim of a position: “Yep! He is just gonna freak!” Shaking her head in total opposition: “I know it, mom. Dad is gonna…”

“
Going
to freak out. I heard you. Now, if you are going to say it at all, then please, try to say it properly!”

“Okay! GOING to freak!” Scanning the parlor, throwing her hands into the air as morning light revealed what dusk in twilight hue had hidden from sight the evening before: dust was everywhere. The parlor was coated; smothered by the thin pale white residual debris it wore like a shroud.

Carolyn was in no mood for any criticism; what she would have normally found adorable did not amuse her in the least after such a difficult night.

“Save it for the stage, babe. You can go to the bathroom through my room. Please close the pantry door on your way.” Having already closed the pantry door a few times that morning, she did not know whom she should blame for leaving it wide open again. As far as she knew, Nancy was the first one up on a dreary Saturday perfect for sleeping in. No one was busy doing laundry.

“What died in here? God! It smells so bad!” Nancy wrinkled her little nose while shutting the pantry door very quickly…with a grand slam.

“I don’t know. Put a sweater on. I had to open the windows.”

“I’m not cold…it just stinks in there!” The comeback kid had spoken.

“Put a sweater on, young lady. Get one from the warm room.”

“I’m
not
GOING in the warm room!” The petulant child had a valid point, based on the legitimate fear of an incongruous image lodged in her mind.

“Then get a sweater from your bedroom. You can probably find one in that pile of clothes on your floor!”

Carolyn instantly softened her stance, recalling how frightened her children had been by an assault they witnessed the evening before. Nancy stood there, staring at her mother as if confused, anxious to remain with her in the parlor. She appeared to be terrified. Suggesting her child retrieve something warm to wear from inside the laundry room, (the pantry with a door suddenly opening of its own volition), Nancy snatched the bathrobe then fled the stinky scene. Carolyn saw her close the door and secure the latch…again. The two of them went into the kitchen together. Mom prepared breakfast for her early-riser. A few minutes later she returned to the parlor to continue the cleaning process which would claim many hours of her day. The room was ice cold. It smelled like something dead. The pantry door was open…again.

Roger returned from his road trip later that evening. Carolyn was relieved to have her husband at home. It meant she could get some peaceful sleep. It also meant she would have to deal with the inevitable fallout; his reaction to her ongoing project. As he walked in through the parlor door, children all but mauled the man; apparently their job, as the greeting committee, to keep their father feeling loved and missed, and then kept well-informed. They were all talking at once, which made it impossible to understand any one of them.

“Look! Mommy…WE all opened the fireplace!” The baby chimed in first.

“And she got beaten up by a coat hanger in the closet!” Nancy
had
to tell.

“Mrs. Pettigrew saw it happen, too!” Christine felt the need to validate her sister’s impetuous disclosure.

“I saw it, too.” Andrea’s somber tone reflected concern…in a whisper.

“Can we please get a horse?” No one knew where
that
question came from but it had been on Cynthia’s mind and since her daddy was in a great mood, it seemed as good a time as any to ask.

“Hold it!” Roger was overwhelmed by the attention; too much information. “Girls! I just walked through the door! Give the old man a break!” Reaching out to haphazardly embrace his eldest, standing on the sidelines, she’d been unable to penetrate the madding crowd. “Okay, everyone relax. Calm down. Did you save me something good to eat? Hope so…I’m starving!”

They had indeed. Roger was hungry and exhausted. He’d been driving for many hours and only wanted to do what he had suggested his kids do: relax. Andrea went into the kitchen to retrieve a bowl of beef stew from the famous pressure cooker. Carolyn escorted Roger into their bedroom, closing the door behind then began to unpack his suitcase. She’d worked all day to clean up a mess in the parlor. Dust traveling the air settled everywhere; to infinity and beyond! Removing sheets from furniture just minutes before his arrival, she was pleased and satisfied with the results: quite an achievement. The parlor looked great; Roger hadn’t noticed. Instead, the road-weary traveler stretched out on their bed, kicking the shoes from his feet.