the lights

There was only darkness now until she saw the lights.  Like far distant dim lanterns on a familiar trail she now had fallen to.  The trail lead into the lake in front of her, and the lights called her to them. The blasting hiss of silence in her ears until nothing.  Muted whispers of summer night’s winds blowing through her chestnut hair.  

The lights in front of her were freedom she thought.  She felt as if the lights were home, and the lights were everything to her, yet she knew not why.  The moon was slowly rising now into the old breathing night, and the reflection on the lake in front of her was warm and twinkling across it's ripples.  Behind her was night, dark blue sky with  darker blue clouds that stretched for eternity behind.  Ahead of her was the future and the lights were there to comfort her.  She did not know where she was and she had no idea how she got there.  She knew only of what she felt standing on the edge of the vast lake that dropped off the edge of the world just before the lights.  They were a muted foggy fire lighting up her soul.  

The lights had put her here.  They had always been there.  Only now did she even see them.  Her memory was static though.  A recollection of horror and shame. Shattered instances, feelings yet no details. The whispering air moved through her hair and caressed her skin.  She felt as if she had been standing there forever and would be forever more in eternity.  It was home yet it was like nothing else she had ever felt. She closed her eyes and embraced the shiver across her skin, making it into a cool blanket that she hugged so dearly to her.  Before the lights, there was so much sadness, the world was so dark and she had become so numb.  Endless pain had poured into her body, yet she hadn’t felt a thing.  Life had been like a cyclopean dune of sludge and thick sand, and all of the fresh water in her body had been spilt and soaked up by the devouring darkness.  She had fallen and knew she could only crawl, never again be able to get up and be what she once was: innocent, precious.  Her skin had been worn, like tattered soiled rags, and her hair pulled and stepped on by others using her to wipe off their sins and wash their hands of their transgressions and malefactions.  One moment, one day, and she could not say when, her life had sped to the point it had stopped, and she did not control anything anymore.  She only controlled her screams, until even that point of control was dragged away.  She had had no choice after she had made her choice.  How long ago had that all been now?  Weeks, months, years, decades?

The lights had changed everything.  The terror that had violently contorted her mind, ripped her innocence and paused her being into an eternal coma had stopped. 

The lights had appeared to her, and brought her here.  They knew her past, they know her future, she knew she knew them.  She stared at the lights and received their grace and comfort. She stepped forward into the lake.  It was warm... and then lights slowly dimmed out.