Darkness

I heard something, something in a coarse. A man standing beside me was staring at me perpetually not shifting his gaze and only looking at my face. It was the man who was talking to me saying something. I gave a brimming look at him and saw his crooked nose moving with his lips. “I saw you when you saw me,” he said. He was wearing a long fur coat too heavy for the weather and his hands were in black gloves. A black hat he was wearing and his neck covered by a muffler suggested that he was someone who feels chill when it is pleasant. The man must have been in his late seventies but looked in forties. “You saw me, didn’t you?,” he asked in an attempt to break my silence. My silence had a longing of thousands of years. I’ve been doing sins since many years, I was impure, did all the devilish acts. Things were haunting me. I was confused. Not knowing what to do. I wasn’t worried at all, don’t know why and wasn’t strong too, coward I was. The thoughts were streaming in my consciousness. “So, didn’t you see me?,” he asked again. I was that moment regaining the present and I heard the same voice that I had been hearing since years of my existence in the world of hope. The voice was filled with love and promise. The love for my soul, which I reckon is still pure, and promise for the images of dreams that I had been seeing every night. But this night was different; I wasn’t dreaming at all. I shook my head, pinched my skin, rubbed my eyes, it was no more a dream I realized. “Are you alone,” he asked. The words stopped, didn’t come out. I wanted to tell him, yes, I am. One part of me is alone and other filled with care. My parents’ care for me, cared for me, will care for me always, I know. The time was entering into the darkness of night and the dogs were barking a far cry from the man, and the man was firm on his belief that night was no more a threat. I was afraid. I am scared of darkness. I fear darkness. I hate darkness. I got panicked. Questions of the man, barking of the dogs, and emptiness of the night, I wanted to go home, and my home was too far. I needed light. I needed to see path. I was pathless. The man put his hand on my shoulder. It was warm. “I am scared,” finally I replied. All his queries were answered, he saw a man who needed help. Not manly help, spiritual help. He wanted to wash off all his sins. He wanted to clean his dark heart, and he wanted to walk fearless in the dark nights. The man smiled and said: “Follow your dreams because dreams are pure”. He left me in the middle of night. I knew my dream, I knew it was pure; I dragged out fear, and walked on the road, passed the dark alleys and passed the barking dogs. I was fearless.