The Carousel

All around you the world gets loud.  It starts to scream.  It’s so loud, you hear nothing at all.  And the dark of the shadows start to suck and sink and pull and suddenly you’ve sunk down into the underworld and everything around you stinks of darkness.

      But that’s the thing about darkness: the stillness.  The silence.  Everything’s stopped.

      Your eyes blink in blackness.  And the air feels like it’s got dirt in it—but its clean dirt.  Is it so bad if you can’t see?  Is it so bad if you can’t hear?  Soundless, dark, stopped.  There’s no world spinning—you’ve finally stepped off the ride.  And just for a moment, all is sweetness.

      That’s when the light starts to creep in, like cracks in a stone filled with fire.  Fissures, all around you, popping like fireworks.  Until suddenly it bursts in. 

      And that’s when you wake up.  You didn’t get off the ride; you just changed horses.  Sometimes that’s all it takes… to get a little peace.

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