Have you heard it? In the dead of night have you felt it? You are laying restless when a quivering begins. Not a manifestation of your body but in the house. Of the house. A rushing fluttering about but not as from the gentle brush of a butterfLy’s wings. More like…the wings of bats? Thousands or no, millions! They do their work making my walls come alive with a rhythmic pulse not conceivable by the minds of men. It is a guided rhythm. This does not brIng me solace however, because I do not know the source or the destination. It just is. I once scraped the recesses of my soul and Gathered enough courage to get out of bed and investigate the extent of this force. The house is dark as it should be. All the accouterments I’ve acquired are still in their place. But the sound! It’s almost as if it will burst through the walls of house and mind and violently take me to darker places still. I never found tHe source. I didn’t really want to. After passing through the hallways and finding every room to be as I left them I quickly hurried back to bed, like a child. I desperately wrapped myself in the safety of bed sheets. Perhaps you’ve experienced these strange night happenings as well? Surely…surely I’m not the only one! Just wait for iT one deceptively winsome evening. Stay awake longer than you were meant to.
I believe there’s a Void
A great nothing comes to call
An inky blackness roams the halls
It reaches through time and space
It cares not for love’s embrace
Why it wants me I cannot say
Will I be consumed or simply obey
With each passing hour light dies until day has waned
And with night’s dark we see our knowledge is feigned
I believe there’s a Void
I believe in the Void
It’s come again. Here we are again. This time I feel the pull of destiny. I am still frightened beyond comprehension but I won’t run this time. There is one place I never looked. Whether subconsciously or consciously I knew it was in there I would find the source. The Basement door. How appropriate. I make my way past all the rooms knowing them to be unaltered except with the sound of beating wings. I drag my finger tips along the walls as I slowly walk step by step towards the basement. I feel the vibration through the walls. It’s tangible! That same haunting rhythm pervades… The soft pale glow of moonlight oozing through cuRtains and windows is the only form of a guiding light. Just mere steps from the door. The beating is growing louder! And more numerous..maybe a millIon fold! As if whatever is behind this door is aNticipating me! My trembling hand reaches out for the door knob.. I grasp it violently to stop myself shaking. It doesn’t work but altogether the sound ceases! The walls are dormant once aGain. The only sound is the doorknob rattling as my nervous sweat-soaked hand squeezes it. It’s odd how intention-ed the most mundane of actions can becomE. A simple turn of a doorknob. It is flippantly done without a second thought every day. But this night I turned it with everything I am. I hear the metal pieces sliding and feel the soft click as it opens ever so slightly. I let the door slowly open itself and myself to the darkened descent of basement steps. The moonlight impotently illuminates just a few steps before the black shuts it out like a wall of ambiguity. I stand theRe frozen in place just waiting….waiting for anything. A sign, a sound. Something! Just nothingness…. Wait! What is that? What is that?
-CL Fuqua
