Out of the Darkness|Episode 2

A Series of Vignettes

On the Soul’s Journey to Freedom

The stakes were so high.  The rewards so… non existent.

She racked her brain for the “how” of finding herself here again.  Hadn’t she done this?  hadn’t she paid the dues?  Why was she back?  Was she here by choice?

She gave her locks a little shake as though to clear out the fog that had overtaken her.  Could this be happening again?

In the dim light it all looked so familiar.  The dark corners, the shady faces, the slight cloud of smoke hung just above the heads.  Was this hell?  A midnight visit to HERE again.  The tortured remembrance of things long past, dragged, kicking and silent into the pain of the present.

Wasn’t the present supposed to be some kind of gift?  A joy?  A love?  Hadn’t she heard somewhere that life was supposed to be GOOD?

Her neighbor had it on her t-shirt, her cousin on her bumper.  But then, that goodness hadn’t really spread to the neighbor’s husband, had it?  Not when the angry epitaphs slipped through the apartment walls and the bags he packed to leave her rattled and bounced the coffee cups in the complex as he yelled fitting replies behind him.

No, and her cousin hadn’t mentioned the bumper as she lovingly folded another bumper – one that would never be bumped, made with all faith and hope by our Auntie Jo when she heard the little one was finally on the way.  No.  Life wasn’t good.

Life was this haze.  This slowly suffocating haze that Rebecca breathed in yet again.

Life was not good.