Excerpt: The Darkness

In his dreams he saw the sun. In his dreams the sky was blue, there were clouds, and if he closed his eyes he could still feel the warmth of the sun of his face. In his dreams he felt the sweat on his body as he toiled on his farm, tilling the earth, and he could smell the dirt as the sun heated it. As though time were sped up, he could see bright green sprouts unfurling from the earth and growing, and he could taste the sweet crunch of corn. He could hear birds. He could see the sun.

Then he would wake to the night. There was a time, now almost forgotten it had been so long ago, that he thought the moon and stars more beautiful than the day. Now that the sky was unchangingly black, he knew better. There was no longer a day and a night, light giving way to dark. There were waking hours and sleeping hours, and no true clock to govern either. Thus, he would walk until he could walk no farther, and then he would lie down and sleep, until he could sleep no longer. He would take refuge under black trees, on grass that gleamed with moonlight on their glossy blades, and pray that the light would come to him in his sleep – or that when he woke, he would find the time gone by nothing more than a vivid nightmare.

He was old. He could feel it in his bones, in his mind, but most particularly in his heart. It had been one hundred years since the end of the world. The cities and landmarks that had gleamed through the ages were now worn. Nature had reclaimed the land, and now there vines intertwining though windows and climbing skyscrapers – flowers had begun to bloom in cracks in cement and tree roots had turned roads into black rivers, rising and falling in a ripple of broken asphalt. Weeds sprouted from every corner, and streets that had once been filled with the chatter of human voices and the constant hum of traffic were now silent. Gardens had become jungles. Orderly farms with their neat rows of crops had turned wild, the nightgrowth flourishing and spreading ravenously. Farmhouses, more often than not, were now nothing more than stands for the plantlife to climb towards the ghostly moon.