The Mourning Times

Lamppost Shadows

My bare feet landed on the cool, satisfyingly rough surface of the sidewalk in an uneven rhythm. The night spilled about me, pressing in as an audience would in a concert hall. Only the spotlight of the streetlamps kept them at bay as I skipped and twisted myself down the street. The air was frigid on my lungs and the distinct smell of nightfall played upon my nose. The moon cast her marred face upon the earth, unnoticing of me as I thread her silver strands of light through my fingertips. The stars were few, but twinkled above me unwaveringly, pinpricks of light in the vast horizons. A single airplane flashed its way across the sky, fading in and out of the dispersed clouds which remained. A smile drifted onto my face and my eyes shone, wide with wonder at the simple spectacles. I paid no attention to where I went. I simply followed my feet. After a while, the drops of light lining the roads became sparser, until I walked a dark path, lit by nothing. I kept going, unhindered, until the last streetlight was no more than a star.

A mountain towered before me, majestic in a pompous way, hauntingly beautiful and proud. At its base sat a single lamppost. I encroached upon it, tiptoeing, and lit my feet in its glow. Moths and other bugs buzzed and groaned their garbled songs above me, held by the light. The florescent bulb was shielded in glass, laced over with cobwebs that drifted in the breeze, and dusted by the wings of the moths. It was made of raven steel, held upon a long slender pole and occasionally marked with chipping gold. I wiggled my toes in the light, letting the grass tangle with my digits as tiny insects crawled across my skin, tickling me.

"Hello again." The voice was aromatic, and calming, like chamomile tea. I clasped my hands behind my back and stood on my heels, teeth flashing in a grin.

"Hi." My eyes searched in the dark, beyond the wall of light. My toes crept forward but before I could take a step there was a great sigh, and the sound of a thousand twigs cracking. A gush of wind blew back my hair and reduced my eyes to slits as it blew dust and bugs into my face. Then followed a silence, broken only by the echoing footsteps, loud and purposeful, growing closer. My heart pounded in anticipation and the corners of my mouth twitched in eagerness.

Before me stopped a gargantuan creature. It was taller than the lamppost and its face was unrecognizable, melting into the sky, only betraying the outline of a long face upon which perched a top hat. In the light I could see it wore a nicely tailored suit, hugging tightly his fine waist and lanky arms. His legs were disproportionally large and his feet as well, wrapped with glistening soft leather. He gripped a cane taller than I with his right hand, covered in white satin gloves. A cough shakes his body and into his left hand.

"Hello, child. A check-up is it?"

"Yessir." I reply.

"Well, then. Let me see." He murmured to himself, sounding like water in a small creek, all the while prodding here and there with his thin cane. I fidgeted with each poke, either frowning in discomfort of smiling in ticklish amusement. At last he stopped his picking and set both hands upon the tip of the cane.

"I'm afraid you've got half a mind," he said matter-of-factly. My stomach knotted inside of me.

"Am I going to die?"

"Have you yet? Of course not. It didn't simply fall out. You were born like that."

"Oh." In the following silence I kicked at a centipede that scuttled into the light and was reprimanded by a stout smack to my foot with the cane.

"Would you like me to fix it?" He asked, breaking the silence with his ill disguised sympathy.

"Yeah, I have half a mind to." I giggled, and he did also, a rumble of the falls.

"A moment, if you will." He said this and left, fading out into the forest. Moments went by and I stood relatively still, sifting from one foot to the other, sighing and stretching before returning to my vigil, watching for sign of his return.

"You're back," I stated as he reappeared, something clenched in his left hand.

"Were you afraid I would leave?"

"Nope."

"Here it is." He whispered, as if speaking to a newborn child, peeling back his long fingers. Inside his palm lay a circular object, pulsing slightly and gleaming with a sticky membrane. It caught the light and appeared like the yolk of an egg, only discolored. I reached out a finger and touched it. The substance stuck to my finger when I lifted it off, and dripped back slowly. I wiped my hand on my jeans.

"It's pretty, but it's not mine." I said. His body became rigid and his fingers twitched momentarily. The silence to me spoke as clearly as if he had asked out loud; well, are you or not? He rapped his fingers on his cane in impatience. I rolled my eyes and nodded. "Fine."

Gingerly, he closed my eyes with his fingers and then reached unceremoniously into my mouth. It was over within a moment. Saliva trailed from my lips and I gagged. The ground beneath me swirled and heaved like the tides of the ocean. "Breathe." He said. In my panic I but stared at him, reaching out my hands into the light, towards him, yet never reaching.

"Help," I cried, as a crushing weight pressed down upon my abdomen and I struggled with my mouth.

"It's but a rhythm." He said, pressing the yolk matter to my shivering mouth. I gasped. The light above me flickered. Everything settled and fell into place. There was near silence in the forest. A beetle buzzed above my head and I heard a clink as it flew into the glass.

"This isn't what I wanted." I whispered, voice shaking. "What have you done to me?"

"The lamppost is old. The light you once saw as a child is no more. There is Lost now, here."

"Why? Why are you leaving me?" I cried. He reached over, past the light where he could see, and took up the tears in his fingers tenderly.

"You're not you, anymore. The lamppost must rest, and I with it."

"No, don't leave me!" I shouted, reaching out my hands. Before my fingers could grasp anything, his voice whispered into my ear.

"Goodbye, my dear."

Above me, the lights flickered, burst, and were no more.

I shoved my cold fingers into my sweatshirt pocket and walked down the sidewalks, lit and relit by the streetlamps. My chin was held close to my collarbone, bared against the winds as I watched my feet move one in front of the other like a metronome. My shadow walked before me, cast from behind. I raised my head at the end of the street, to see where I must go next. I took a right. Behind me, I knew if I cared to turn I would see a tall, tall man making his way up the mountain, carefully entwining himself between the trees beneath him. He would climb all the way to the top, where he would stretch out his hands to the heavens, cane forgotten, and fade like mist into the night, where he will drift aimlessly between the stars. And I, now with all my heart and mind, will travel underneath of the stars, the moon, and the streetlamps, lighting my way loyally, without a mind to pay them heed.