It’s midnight now. The pale moon has at last reached the apex of the ageless pine two blocks over. The only tree left plush and fully clothed among a crowd of skeletal branches and bark. Next to the frost tipped top of the evergreen giant stands the ominous brick smokestack stemming from the factory down the road. Its three bright red orbs flash and pierce the twilight sky with a chilling shade of crimson, with each blink revealing a bit more detail of the needles and webbing inside the layers of the pine only to take it away again a second later when the darkness again takes back the territory. These two silent sentinels share one characteristic in this moonlight. It can be seen on the rigid walls of the stack and along the roots of the old tree, gripping the soil forevermore. Faint shadows of the world around it can be seen on both; playfully swaying, slowly creeping in sync with the objects they’re cast from. This time of night, and the shadows which accompany it, always gets my imagination and wonderment thriving.

            What secrets and mysteries are held within these dark figures? Or is there nothing more to them than the absence of the light sneaking around their subjects? What timeless stories of horror and unearthly terror do they possess? These secrets being carried with them through all the years they have cast themselves upon the same ground. When you walk a path filled with light, it’s clear to see where you are and what lies ahead. But when you walk through darkness, much more is left to the unknown and the minds perception. And the mind can be a very scary place, especially when it’s your only compass. But that doesn’t mean we should hide away from it or wearily avoid contemplating it. To appreciate the light you must first understand darkness. And so I would say that indeed there is nothing more to shadows than what science and the laws of nature tell us. But what a man sees in place of the light, where his mind goes when engulfed in those shadows, that’s where the real horror stems. The stories and fables of old, tales of ghosts and ghouls, monsters and the undead, are actually gilded disguises of the atrocities mankind and madness can create. When one is lost in the shadows of his own mind, there is no going back and the new world that is created is a torturous place if you let it be. This is the manner in which evil deeds are done, this is why some are capable of bringing hell on Earth. Insanity and curiosity lurking in the shadows.

          Of course, perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe there is something else in those shadows other than a mystique powerful enough to drive a man past the brink of reality. Maybe they act as the portal out of the darkest night imaginable. The gateway from hell itself. Where the horrors creep into our world to torment our dreams and poison our souls. Only to slither back into the dying shadows just before dawn and bide their time until nightfall comes again. Just how supernatural is this world we live in? Do you believe in ghosts? When you hear a bang or creak at night, where is the first place your worried mind goes? The practical man would naturally believe my first explanation here; that is that men go evil, insane, and sadistic and their minds succumb to the darkness and the shadows turning them into the real monsters. The dreamer would feel more inclined to believe in the latter discussion here; that the unreal can be real. That the dead can rise and the impossible can haunt us. Either way, the shadows cause the pain. The unknown which we fear breeds much more to really be afraid of. The secrets these shadows hold are fascinating things to think about. One man sees one thing, unaffected. The next man may see them and never be the same again. What powers must they possess? All that is certain is that the secrets and mysteries held within these dark, empty reflections of our world can never really be understood. For in the dark, too much is left to the unknown to ever truly be safe.

Steven A Williams

First published in ‘The Funeral of Life’ June 2014

To be published in ‘Of Blood and Ink” coming April 2015

Purchase ‘The Funeral of Life‘