Through the Dark
Arin woke to the sound of her husband snoring, God that irritated her. Even in his sleep he could get on her nerves. She suppressed the urge to scream at him and instead glared at the black ceiling waiting for her eyes to adjust. Lying alone in the silent room she did not know the time, but the dark had a weight of deep night, three or four AM. After a few minutes the strange stalactite shapes of the plaster became clear, so did the awareness sleep would not come again tonight.
She snuggled with thoughts of her youth, when it was customary for her to sleep well into the afternoon. Now, five hours slumber seemed a fantasy. A coy smiled played across her lips. She wasn’t that ancient – adolescence was not that long ago. To be honest, 31 didn’t feel much different than 21. She had been graced with her mother’s youthful face and, besides a few extra pounds, she had remained the same over the years. The main features of the show had certainly remained the same: questions, confusion, discontentment, and a pleasurable sense of exploration…no, nothing had changed.
A major part of her current discontentment was the snoring mass next to her, which lay in a peaceful stagnation she could not achieve. What was she doing here? Thoughtful exploration into her own condition had filled many a sleepless night and she knew a youthful face was not the only thing inherited from her mother. Her earliest memories were of that pure woman’s quiet, passive voice, peaceful, ever smiling face and rustic, old fashion style. Unfortunately, with old fashion styles come old fashion ideas. Stand behind your man was a running theme of her childhood. In Arin’s teens the Spice Girls had a hand in tearing some of these notions apart, but the pieces remained and occasionally surfaced in the most unexpected ways, like in an overwhelming desire to be a married woman. Her mother was gone now, but she still had some of her old dresses, and they fit very well. Her ideas about self and womanhood had been deeply affected again by her constant desire to know all the facts. Of course seeing opportunities through glass ceilings and wrestling with Woolf’s “Night and Day” had not lessened the stress of an already overtaxed, overly toxic, underappreciated life, only given new reasons for and means of appraisal. Is it any wonder sleep was hard to come by?
“I need a cigarette.” The low utterance hung in the coagulated dark. It seemed to reverberate off the heavy oak furniture of the bedroom. She stiffly departed the bed and traversed a way around the space. In her mind she held a vivid picture of the finely carved, rich brown headboard and matching side table and chest of draws. The interior of her home was satisfyingly lovely, even if it was too dark to see it now. She gradually made her way into the gloom of the hall.
The diffused light of the street lamp outside only peeked passed the boundary of the door, making the walk into the inner hall one of ever deepening darkness. She did not bother to turn on the light above her; it had been broken for what seemed like forever. She had requested her husband fix it, but he had never found the time. He rarely traversed the dark of night, what need did he have of this light? She had found she was too afraid to climb the ladder and provide her own light. When he wakes she would have to remind him again.
Her husband was a good man; it was reality and her own identity that she questioned. No real answers had ever come. Maybe she did not know what love was. Perhaps this mundane, co-ownership of emotion called marriage was love. Possibly she had seen too many of Walt’s happy endings to separate reality from make believe. Let’s face it, she was no Cinderella and prince charming was not galloping his way through the night. Maybe she should count her lucky stars she had a good man and continue on with life or maybe she should man up and leave. She knew neither would happen today, but at least there was a choice and she was free to make it. The solemn recognition of a time when no choices were to be had made her thankful to women she could not name for waging war in the name of woman kind. With choices came responsibility…and freedom.
Hand and hand with her contemplations she slowly descended the stairs; the flood of dim lamp light from the living room window was like the light of day after the blackness from which she had come. She stood for a moment to enjoy the blanket of silence and allowed her mind to lose its focus. There were times when she felt selfish allowing her own petty needs to consume her. She wasn’t starving or homeless, beaten or used. With a world so full of injustice, pollution and politics, what right did she have to lose sleep over singular discontentment? But then, she had as much hope of changing the world as she did her own personal discomforts, so did it matter what she lost sleep over? It seemed both her and Mother Earth were predestine to live corrupted. With a heavy sigh she took a step into the room which now seemed as dimly lit as it truly was.
She traversed the room by the dim light and perched on the edge of the recliner. She pulled a cigarette from the pack on the table beside her and lit it with ease. As she watched the glowing embers come to life with each inhalation, she speculated how she must look, illuminated by the small fluctuating orange glow, obscured by a haze of smoke lightened by a filtered silvery glow. Hitchcock came to mind.
An ever expanding education had offered a wonderful chance for self-exploration. Intimate exploration could be as terrifying as climbing Everest, but the prize for her was indescribable. Even with the constant uncertainty surrounding her, she was solidifying her identity. She was coming into focus. So far she liked what she saw and looked forward to what she sensed ahead. She liked who she was becoming. She had control of her mind and the knowledge she gained was her own. Like the comfort of a good friend in times of need, her self-knowledge was an island in rough seas.
…she reached above her and turned on the light.
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