Enter the Darkness Yet Remerge — Short Story by Lowell Bassi

“Have you understood the vast expanse of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this. In which direction does the light reside? And where is the place of darkness?”

-Book of Job 38: NWT

Decipher this puzzling mess which I have entered myself into. It’s no longer the times where we could live in a world with rocks covering our heads. Let’s face the truth, that the clouds will coalesce eventually. And the octopi, and the squid, the great dangers of the marine will stay awake forever. Bees will return to their hives one last time, and statues will crumble to the floor again. We’re re-entering this age. The age, yes, where the flower buds snap shut, their petals immaculately clasped together, as if sewn. Those great bears, that leaped for berries and pounced for the fresh salmon will crawl back to their dark abodes. The once joyous music of a combination of oboe and clarinet is packaged, resealed back into the Yamaha cases, and replaced by thundering timpani and dark cellos. We took those golden beaches for granted, for they were also too easily swollen by the oceans, until all that was left of the islands and coasts were sharp precipices. Those poor, wretched sailors who thought that when the dark clouds came over and the sun went away it was merely a storm… it was much more than that.

Not even the snow-lands persisted, with mystical currency, and warm mugs of pumpkin soup, held by woollen gloves. It all melted, the water ran down the hills, past the dark oak houses and seeped into the frigid waters. This phenomenon had come in its full wrath. I don’t know what happened to the fish and the dolphins, they became one with the water, dissolved into dust. All beings and objects are being frantically manipulated by time, computer lids being shut, zipped back into cases, the zips of jackets were done up. The holy relics of paintings around the world, they peeled off, or the oil paintings, they simply melted and dyed the carpets of the museums. This new event which has stuck everything, was not disaster, and neither was it death. Even I cannot put to words, this, everything compacted into its simplest forms, yet somethings emerged and grew. The large expanses of grass and lushness, just diminished, by going into the ground. It wasn’t happy until the land, was a dark grey concrete. The humans were fortunate as to simply be taken away, awe-struck by this power and were willingly mummified, or put to bed neatly. It was a very decisive and plotting you see, it sewed this all at once, like 10 arms at once.

Its job was done, the Earth was set as it was meant to be it. Snoring, and sleepin’. But he left a screw open, that one photon of light that managed to creep through, and detonate, like a booming star. It wasn’t death, it wasn’t disaster. We all knew along things like these are temporary. Some invisible string rethreaded those statues, though unfortunately we never got to realise that those statues were hollow and were worth nothing. The dust of the insects and the deer grew out of the ground, their bare skeletons, merging into flesh and bone. Those sunflowers they came out, waiting until the clouds, would rip apart and the sun would come. The lazy humans got out of bed stretched, and they don’t remember anything. As if nothing had happened. The Lock Ness monster, started groaning, dying, it’s bodily fluids pouring into the ocean. The deep mercury sea life finally had a rest. Hibernation was over, the flowers pulled apart their sews. How long this happened we do not know. But one thing I can assure is that, no one cares about the pain, once they’ve left it. What do I have left to tell you, as the flutes start their trills, and the tambourine replaces those dark cymbals?

World, we need to wake up. It’s all in the mind. I helped you drag out of this darkness, find light in these times. But what lays ahead for the Earth throughout the times are way more than a virus, and I won’t always be there. So, stay strong.

This was my short story that I wrote for a Short Story Competition.