A Lapse of All Things

It was night when I saw her. For the first time in who knows how many years, I saw the woman that I had given everything up for. I wanted to run to her, hug her to me. I wanted to tell her what I had done for her, my regrets, my doubts.

I wanted to spill my black soul too her.

Yet, what I wanted, and what I felt were so very contradictory. I felt nothing, I moved naught, and I stayed in the shadows. It is the place best for me. Yet, my wants, my thoughts turned towards ripping off this mask which I now so expertly wear and running to her.

And for a moment, I forgot who I was........

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"Mother, mother! I'm right here mother!" I said, my voice bursting with excitement as I ran down the street towards the woman who loved me more than sunshine. Fondness for the reunion had pushed aside all my bad thoughts about her, and I saw her for what she really was; a loving, caring, woman.

"Cecil?! My dear Cecil? Look at you! You're all grown, into a man!"

"But mother, I'm still the same child as before. You're little child." And so I was. I was a child, in a brown tunic made from clothsack, scurrying in her arms, while the other children of the slums played around me.

"Oh, my, my, my! Dear Cecil, I've missed you so much!" She hugged me tightly to her, and I hugged her right back.

"Mommy, I've missed you too. I have something to show you!"

"Oh? What's that, dear?"

"Father, mommy! Father's came back!" And I pointed down the road where there, resplendent in a black robe was a tall figure. With a sudden leap forward, the figure ripped reality asunder. My mother fell into blackness, but she didn't fall for long. Soon the blackness crept around her, and I watched as my mother was devoured in shadows. Then, so too was I. In my place was nothing.

----

My emotions, my feelings, my wants, my desires, my thoughts and will have burst forward at the sight of this woman. Emotions... wants... thoughts... I can't tell the difference anymore. It has been cohersively merged together into what has become my existence.

Yet, it's all devoured, and my body quiets. I turn away.

So powerful is the Void that I would turn away from the woman who I had once upon a time gave my life too.

So strong has been my transformation through pain and all sorts of vile torture that I would shun this woman.

My mother.

For my Father. A shadow. All shadow.