Dark O’Clock
The door to my bedroom swung open, hitting the wall with a dull thud. My mind wrenched me from my dreams into a bleary moment of half-consciousness. I could hear the shuffling of feet on softly creaking floorboards. I froze, my fear of the dark overwhelming me. My mind raced. I was certain the monsters had finally come for me. I lay still, body stuck in that moment between fight and flight, straining to hear the impending danger. Just as I gripped the covers and readied myself to flee to safety beneath them, my bedside lamp came on. I gasped as I saw the intruder.
“Mom,” I croaked, ”what time is it?” Her eyes were big and bright, alight with whatever mischief she had concocted. “It’s dark o’clock, little shroom. We have somewhere we need to be.” She whirled away from me and out the door before I could form a response. I could hear her footsteps thundering away from me and down the stairs.
At 9-years-old, I already knew that my mother was on the verge of madness. Her moods carried with them ecstasy or tragedy depending on the moment. I had not yet learned how to tell the difference, but I knew that the night’s wee hours did not often hold good tidings. I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed. Plop plop. My feet hit the floor one-by-one. I let that connection with the ground launch me into wakefulness as my father had taught me. I heard my brother’s running footsteps coming down the hall. “Come on,” he hissed as he reached my door, “it’s almost time!”
He grabbed my hand, pulling me down the hall and half dragging me down the stairs. Stopping abruptly at the bottom he said, “Grab a coat and meet us out back.” Then he dropped my hand and hurried away, leaving me alone in the darkness. I did as I was told reaching blindly into the coat closet by the stairs and grabbing one of my Dad’s puffy jackets. We were between seasons and the night air carried a chill that could cut to the bone. Wrapped in the protective warmth of my father’s coat, I shuffled toward the kitchen and turned on the light.
“DON”T!” Her voice rang out like a thunderclap. “You have to leave the lights off or you’ll ruin it.”
I turned the light off again and stumbled back as my Mom rushed in to grab my hand. She whisked me across the kitchen floor and out the back door. I stumbled at the threshold, bare feet scuffing against the concrete of the back patio, and she let go of me disappearing into the night. I could see my brother standing in the yard, illuminated by a flashlight. In front of him was a massive, lumpy shape that unnerved me. As I drew closer, I could see it was a huge pallet of blankets, sheets, and pillows. “Quick,” he said, “Get under the covers. It should be starting soon.” My mother appeared behind me so quickly that I jumped when I heard her voice. “It’s a meteor shower, ‘shroomie! You’re going to love it.”
Finally, their excitement infected me and I became fully energized and alert. I ran to the makeshift bed and dove right into the middle, tunneling into the center of the pile. My mother and brother tucked in next to me and we all laughed and shivered as we stared up at the sky, waiting for the light show to begin. My mother began to chatter excitedly, her voice hitting a pitch and speed that told me she was on an upswing. I felt better knowing that the late night mania was being channeled into something as benign as stargazing. I let her words fade into the background, was I studied the stars, contemplating the universe beyond our planetary borders. Having spent most of my nights inside, tucked safely into my bed, I hadn’t noticed how bright the stars could be.
As I lay in the snug space my mother had made for me, nestled between the bodies of my family. I contemplated my life and my place in the world and, ultimately, the universe. I was often overwhelmed in my daily life, paralyzed by indecision. Knowing that every action, every word, every step would affect my entire life and the lives of everyone around me felt like too large a weight to carry. I had seen first hand the effect a single person’s actions could have on the people around them and I had promised myself I would live well and be a good person, even if I wasn’t sure what that meant. The reality was that I spent my days stifled, anxious, and constantly afraid of making mistakes. What way is that to live a life?
As the meteors started to blaze across the sky and my mother’s manic voice filled the air with knowledge and philosophical, though fragmented, thoughts, I felt something inside of me begin to unwind. Were my actions really so consequential? They were so small in the grand scheme of the universe. Wouldn’t it be okay for me to make mistakes? To stumble? If I wasn’t perfect, if I wasn’t always “good”, wouldn’t everything still be okay? I realized then that the world would not end because of anything I did. Not my world or the planet Earth. It was like getting the key to a cage I didn’t know I’d been keeping myself in. My tight grip on control of myself and the world around me loosened and I breathed a sigh of relief in that moment.
Mom’s voice came to me muffled, as if she were speaking to me from a great distance. Her thoughts raced on and she spoke of the unknowable breadth of the universe, how our human scope of vision and reality was so limited, and how our lives were finite and inconsequential in the infinite greatness of the universe. She spoke of life and death and the utter meaninglessness of everything.
The truth is, insanity is as much a blessing as it is a curse. It cracks worlds open, shatters expectations, and defies understanding. It makes and breaks all those who have been touched by it.
I pondered this for a while, thinking about how much I had always felt I needed control. As if she could read my thoughts, she turned to me, eyes twinkling, and said something that would etch itself into the walls of my heart and mind forever, “Chaos is truth in life. Accept it for what it is.” Then she fell quiet. The three of us lay there watching meteors meet their doom in fantastic, blazing streaks of glory.
