Camarilla of Boulder

enter the world of darkness...

Can You Handle It?

Ever walk down the street of a big city at night and tried to keep a mental picture of where everyone you passed went? Ever see something out of the corner of your eye, but when you turn, there's nothing there?  Ever get a sick feeling in your stomach, and when you look up, there's a stranger staring right at you?  If you have, you have an idea of how it is to survive in the World of Darkness.

Let me say that Darkness is not death. It is not an explosion of fire and chaos. These things are not dark; they are simple. Simple is not the world of darkness. Concepts that have only one resolution are not the world of darkness. Let me talk about what darkness can be.

Darkness can be fear, like the feeling you have while hiding under the bed at 9 years old, hoping that the killer walking through your house will not find you. You know you're not strong enough to fight, or fast enough to run. All you can do is breathe, slowly and shallowly, hoping, hoping, hoping.

It can be the horror you feel upon waking up one morning, discovering that your muscles no longer work, that you can't lift your hand or call for help, and that your body is eating itself from the inside out.

Darkness can be watching the car accident that is about to happen to your loved one, and knowing there is nothing you can do the help them, save them, or alter things. It can be the feeling that comes when you arrive home, having just had a great meal, only to find that your house has burned down in the meantime. How does that meal taste now? THAT is darkness.

Imagine what it would be like to have Down's syndrome for all of your life. You fall in love with someone who is normal, you're going to be married. The day before you're married, there is a car accident, and you wake up in a hospital with a doctor telling you you're paralyzed from the neck down. Imagine how you would feel, at that moment, at that time, and then you can understand darkness.

What if you were walking down the street, and got hit by something or someone, and fell unconscious. You wake up, your body sore and bruised. There is pain, but you don't know where exactly. You can't see anything, it's pitch black. You wave your hand in front of your face... nothing. You strain to listen... you can't hear anything, save for your breathing. Are you blind? Are you underground? You reach out your hands, and touch... nothing. You try to get up, and find that you can't.  Imagine what that would be like.

Darkness is having to live with the knowledge that if you had acted on one tiny detail, things would be different. That being, for example, undead is not simply playing a human with super powers. That being a werewolf has downsides, great and terrible ones.

Darkness is not death, torture or cruelty. It is living with fear, hatred, horror, pain, anguish, suffering, and sorrow. Death is quick, it is easy, and it is understandable. Darkness is what we do not understand, what we cannot deal with, what pushes the boundaries of our hearts and souls.

Think on that.

What is darkness…. ?