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She asked for some news about my walk on the dark path. What could I tell her? The truth? Probably, because I couldn’t lie at this moment, couldn’t be bother nor having any idea about the wonderful happiness I wasn’t living in. So, here’s my reality and the memory I’ve got of it.
It was the fifth month of my journey on the unsociable road I had to take due to the an old man, dying of a cancer, feeling like driving a little bit, and maybe trying to take a passenger with him to hell. People told me to be patient on this long trip, and still continue to copy it, zip it, paste it, repeat it… technologic? Anyway, the pain was going away, slowly, the sun started to shine again, the winter saying his last words and the heat warming my soul up. I could see it, nearly touch it. This big light, gone since so long, was so close again. Hope. No doubt, hope was just there. So I believed, naively, life was restarting. Physical exercises to bring back this weak body to a better shape. Reading, writing, enjoying the landscape, waiting for the first flower to come out. Yes, like a vineyard, dead during the winter and coming back to life with the spring. Days passed faster, the walk was easy and fresh, I wanted to run to reach definitely the summer, but the voices continued to say to be patient, so I just walked, a bit faster. Then I found a bike on the side of the road. A bike I knew from this past long gone. Should I use it? Was there something wrong to do that? Be patient, be patient... but I’ve never been good with patience, so I just rode the bike, and the road became brighter and brighter, till I reached hope, finally. The grass was so green there and seemed to continue till the eternity under the blue sky. No need of tricks there. No alcohol, no drugs, only reality was enough to enjoy my soul. I thought.
Because eternity doesn’t exist, this meadow couldn’t last forever. But I didn’t want to know. The air was too good to think about bad things. Bad was taboo there. The word didn’t even exist. But suddenly, one morning, I woke up and discovered a low black sky on top of my head. My body was shaking due to the cold wind coming from a dark forest just in front of me. A forest I hadn’t notice the day before, probably drunk of happiness like every evening since I had reach hope. First I thought I could just go back where I was a few days ago, but I couldn’t see any piece blue sky anywhere around me and decided to continue my journey in the same direction. I decided to cross this forest.
At the beginning, the smell of the trees was kind of refreshing. The path was wide, flat and just soft enough to make you feel like walking on a giant cheese cake. Then the path became smaller, more wild plants and herbs slapping my legs, the ground was getting muddy and smelled like a ugly blue French cheese. The light slowly disappeared under the thick trees making a dark cover on top of this oppressive vegetation. After days fighting to go forward I realised I couldn’t see any path anymore, any light, and wasn’t sure I was going on a straight line. But I continued in the endless night to move. Really slowly. Out of breathe most of the time.
One morning, the little piece of hope I took with me from the sunny sky was gone; stolen by a dark creature living in this forest or dead of starvation. So I walked alone, again, and even if my body wasn’t feeling too much pain compare to the beginning of my journey, my soul was crying louder every step.
At some points, I remember coming out of the forest, seeing the sky again, but his blueness seemed old and stained and I could see the end of it. A circle of weak joy trapped between the strong arms of the wood. Some of these inviolate light spaces were extremely beautiful and helped me a lot to continue walking. But some other parts of the forest seemed lasting forever and more. The time took the attitude of a rubber band, sometime long and tense, other relax but short.
Since that day when I found this darkness surrounding me, I’m still stuck in this shitty wood, the body’s getting used to the nettle stroking my arm but the darkness and the lack of light is slowly but surely breaking my soul apart. I’m not expecting to get out of this place ever. It’s probably what gives me the energy to walk. I just want to see more of it, to see some differences. Like an Eskimo is able to notice loads of contrast and difference of colour of the snow. While a basic European guy will just see white snow, the Eskimo got many adjectives and name for every specific type of snow depending of the time of the year, the temperature, the health of the atmosphere and other things I can’t even imagine. So, I started to notice as well some little details of the night. I don’t have words at the moment to explain them, but I know now the darkness is not only a black thing. It’s complex, deep, and maybe there are living creatures in it with their own spirit and ideas. That’s what makes me continue the journey, even if sometime I just stay the whole day lying on a tree, listening the quiet obscurity, I still continue, the next day, my road in the dark night.
The words and messages of other human being still reach me where I am, but their meaning became more blurry every time and I know one day, I will wake up and won’t be able to understand anymore the common language.
Till then, I will listen and continue to walk...
