PARADOX

She peeked out of the tiny crack in the window. The roads at night that had once been an unnerving sight seemed that way no more. In fact, they now seemed to be a myriad of mysteries, no more than a unsolved puzzle.

She remembered her thoughts that night as they had travelled across the mountain a few months ago to get here. Silent words that jumbled together to make up innumerable sentences. She remembered how beautiful the hills looked as they bathed in the gentle light of the full moon, how the houses scattered in the greenery, which looked like miniature showpieces from a distance, seemed to her like baby birds nesting in the warmth of their nests of thick foliage. How nature can welcome even her destroyers into her open arms with loving abandon, this she would never understand. She also remembered how beautiful the darkness felt to her at time; it held everything gently in its cold embrace, never ceasing overwhelming calm.

Once to her the dark was only pretty from a safe distance, almost like a chained wild dog. She wondered why it was not the case now, why she felt more at peace in the cold calm of the darkness now than in the intense warmth of light.

She often pondered why people were afraid of the dark; not that she never was, she still was intimidated by it from time to time; she wondered why people instinctively reached out for the light. Why do they say that darkness is but an absence of light? Could it not be that light is but the absence of darkness?

Why do people seek the ardent reality of the light almost instinctively rather than the never-ending yet unseen inscrutabilities of the darkness; why not choose the infinite dreams that lay in the shade? Is it because of an inborn tendency to fear the unexpected, the unknown? Is it due to an indescribable bliss of basking in the light? Or it is something even beyond it, something unexplainable-

I would call it fear, he said.

She jumped; she must have been thinking out loud. He was standing in the shadows, as if he himself was a part of it, and a flicker of a smile on his face.

Your time is ticking you know, he said.

She nodded; she knew it better than anyone else.

The smile on his face slowly disappeared; faint moonlight from the cracked windows illuminated his slim figure, his long black hair, his pale face; a ghostly, unearthly sight.

It's okay, she replied. I'm fine, for now.

Good, he whispered.

Hey, you said it was fear, she began, fear that keeps away people. But why? When all the colours merge, they do form a thick, dark shade of black in the end. Aren't we all going to finally end up here? Then why fear it? The dark?

Well, you might be the first person to think that way, he replied, with an almost jovial smile.

But why?

He merely shrugged.

There are things in this world even I don't know, he said.

She stared, then turned her attention back on peeking from the tiny crack in the window.

So, are you ready to leave? He asked.

Maybe not yet, she replied, without even turning to face him. Please just a little longer.

I can wait, he answered. Gladly.

Thank you, she whispered, her voice filled with gratitude, as with a smile she continued to gaze at the spectral beauty of never-ending nothingness. Even if only for the time being.