My Life in Darkness
Read My Life in Darkness Online
Authors: Harrison Drake
MY LIFE IN DARKNESS
A Novella
by Harrison Drake
Website:
http://www.HarrisonDrake.com
Twitter:
@HDrakeTheWriter
Copyright 2012 by Harrison Drake. All rights reserved.
First Kindle Edition: March 2012
Cover Design:
Streetlight Graphics
LICENSE NOTES
All rights reserved. This eBook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the original purchaser only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
DISCLAIMER
The characters and events portrayed in this book are a work of fiction or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Table of Contents
This story is dedicated to both the mysteries of the universe and of what it means to be human, as well as the happenstance that allows the two of them to collide.
MARCH 18, 1988
To the Girl With the Golden Hair,
I wasn’t sure I wanted to come here. It’s a long way just to see the sun disappear. My parents showed me pictures and it looks pretty rad, but I don’t know.
But I’m glad I came. I hope you don’t see me watching you, that would just make me more nervous. The moon’s starting to block the sun. Cool. I wanted to write this letter to you, maybe I’ll give it to you.
Probably not. Mom says I’m too shy.
I really hope I see you again. Mom said we’re not going to the next one. I think that’s good. It would be even longer to get there. She said it’s somewhere in the USSR, but there’s not much around.
I really hope you’ll be at the one after that. I want to see you again. You look so happy, and it makes me feel happy for once. And you look like you’re about my age. I’m nine now.
Well, I’ll be thinking about you. The sun’s almost gone. Dad says it will be gone for three minutes and twenty-three seconds.
Okay. This is cool.
JULY 11, 1991
To the Girl With the Golden Hair,
I’m so glad you’re here. How have you been? I’ve thought about you a lot. And about the eclipse. It was amazing. I felt so happy, so normal in the darkness. There was nobody watching me, nobody making fun of me, nobody trying to hurt me.
Have you ever read
Robinson Crusoe
? It’s my favourite book, I’m on my fourth time reading it. Just the idea of being stranded alone on a deserted island, it kind of seems like a good thing. Kind of seems like it would feel the way the eclipse did.
I’ve been waiting since then to feel that way again. It’s like, when the sun disappears behind the moon, everything’s the way it should be. Is that weird?
I hope you’ve been good. Things weren’t great for me, but I think they’re getting better. I want to talk to you, maybe you could help me with some stuff. Maybe it wouldn’t seem so bad. But I’m still so nervous. I can barely talk to anyone without freaking-and you’re beautiful.
That’s not the only reason I like you though. If you smiled during the eclipse, I bet it would be bright again. You just seem nice, not like everyone at school.
Well, this will be a good one. Six minutes and almost thirty-eight seconds. I can’t wait to feel alive again. Maybe it will make me strong enough to talk to you, or at least to give you this letter.
But probably not.
Next time?
JUNE 30, 1992
To the Girl With the Golden Hair,
It’s been less than a year this time, and I can still feel the energy from the last one. It’s like the darkness fills me with hope—backwards, right?—and it stays in me. For a while at least, until everyone picks away at it ‘til it’s gone.
Things haven’t been getting any better. You can see I’ve got zits… everywhere. I mean, lots of people our age have them, but I got it bad. Why is life like that? Like I needed to have it harder. But the perfect jocks, they don’t get a spot. At least you have a couple too. I’m not being mean, it just… makes you more real.
Plus I got braces and glasses this year. I spent a lot of time stuffed in my locker after that. Why am I writing this? You’d probably think I’m a loser if you read it. But maybe not. I guess it’s the maybe not that keeps me writing you these letters. That one day I’ll talk to you or give them to you and you’ll understand. I just wish it could be today but my hands are sweating writing this.
Another two minutes and four seconds of life for me coming up. It’s funny, it’s only the totality that matters. Only the time when the sun is completely gone, the rest of the time it could be the middle of the day to me. But when the sun is gone, just a ring of fire dancing around the edges of the moon, that’s when I feel the fire in me too.
Like the corona of the sun that we don’t normally get to see is reaching out to me.
BALNEÁRIO ARROIO DO SILVA, BRAZIL
NOVEMBER 11, 1993
To the Girl With the Golden Hair,
I can’t believe I still don’t even know your name. There aren’t that many of us umbraphiles here, and even less that come every time. But still, I can’t bring myself to talk to you.
That cast on your arm must suck. I wonder how you broke it. You’re so tall and slender, nothing like me. Gymnastics, maybe? You look like a gymnast. I wish I could do that, especially the rings. I love watching it on the Olympics, but my dad says I don’t have an athletic bone in my body. And he hates me for it, I can tell. Plus, he doesn’t think gymnastics is a man’s sport.
They wanted more than one kid, but I was all they got. The doctors said they were lucky I was even born, my mom wasn’t supposed to have been able to have babies.
My dad was a football star in school, and he watches sports all the time. He tried to get me to play as a kid, but I was never any good and I didn’t like it. I get picked last in school, and most of the time I’m on the bench. I think the only good thing I got was that I’m smart. But that just gets me picked on more.
It’s been worse lately, but when I get really depressed I think of the next eclipse and that feeling I get. And, of course, seeing you again. You don’t know it but you’ve helped me through a lot of rough times.
We’re almost there. I try to write until the end, but it gets so dark it’s hard to see what I’m doing. I want these letters to look nice for when I give them to you. Almost four minutes this time, three forty-nine. I wish I could stand next to you during it. Maybe the feeling I get would pass on to you.
I’m being weird again, sorry. But me and eclipses, well, we have a past.
OCTOBER 24, 1995
Dear Lena,
It’s nice to know your name, but it sucks too. Now I know you don’t even speak English. There goes that, and I was ready to talk to you today. I mean, I almost got there. I was close enough to hear your name, to see your beautiful green eyes. But then I heard you speaking, well I don’t know what it was, and I got nervous again.
Why am I like this? I get nervous if I have to talk to anyone, especially girls, but I get nervous too in public places. Like malls and movie theatres. And school. So I spend most of my time at home, on the computer. The internet is amazing, I’m sure they have it where you’re from. It’s so much better than modems and BBS networks. I’ve started learning how to write code for computers too, C++ mainly. I want to be able to make my own games one day.
Everyone at school has boyfriends or girlfriends and it makes me sad. I know I’ll probably never find a girlfriend. And I don’t even care about all the things they supposedly do together (they’re probably just saying they’re doing it to sound cool). I just want someone to talk to, someone to like me for who I am. Of course, I wouldn’t say no if you wanted to hold hands during the eclipse or something.
Can you drive now in your country? I could get my licence but, again, I’m too nervous. And I don’t have anywhere I want to go. Maybe I’ll get it one day.
I hope things have been good for you. You look good and your cast is gone. That’s good! I actually broke my wrist last year and had a cast as well. Of course, my story isn’t very good. I fell down the stairs. Yep, that’s it. Brutal, huh? Someone found out at school and of course they made fun of me even more. Then this one kid, he’s an asshole—sorry!—pushed me down the stairs, thinking it was funny. I landed on my cast and had to get more X-rays and a new cast.
I wanted to kill myself. I almost did. I have some pills, for my anxiety and depression, and I was going to take them all. But then I thought of you, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, you would wonder where I was when the next eclipse came.
I wish I could bring the darkness home with me. Then I could hide in it and no one would see me, no one would be able to find me. Maybe my dad wouldn’t hit me anymore, either. It’s not much, and I know he’s trying to help. He just gets frustrated that I’m always on the computer, says it’s unhealthy. And if I put on any more weight he gets really mad. I know he seems like a great guy, and he is, he just wants the best for me, but he gets angry. He works really hard, has his own construction company and he makes a lot of money.
