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The Lesson

I. Theory

She is dark and her darkness frightens you. But as closer you come to her, the lighter the darkness becomes. How bright the light were, if a thousand suns would rise in the sky at once, but even such unbearable light powerlessly pales in comparison with the darkness of the one who scares you so much. The whole world, from heaven to hell, from black holes to snake’s ones, from the purest aspirations of human soul to the dirtiest pores of its flesh, is soaked with darkness like a sponge... Speaking of which, who is a class monitor today? The blackboard after the lesson should be virgin clean.

so don’t be afraid
come close and take the final
step toward yourself

II. Practice

Blind, hands in front, moving forward slowly. Or walking around. Direction no longer mattered. Time too. The last memories of light have long been left behind and now only darkness surrounded me. Alas, I wasn’t alone here. Fear didn’t leave my side, and its chains, clanging out there, made me nervously laugh. As instructed, after laughter pain comes, and soon there were three of us: a fear, a pain and the echo, laughing in the dark. It was all a bit sad. It all meant I haven't met her face-to-face yet.

endless loneliness
in everlasting darkness -
that's what she looks like

III. Exam

The human mind turns any abstractions into anthropomorphic forms. She had cat eyes, and in her vertical pupils I saw only eternal gloom. The weary moans of a woman, giving birth in pain; a newborn’s first cry; a girl's tears over the baby bird that fell out of the nest; a red-nosed widower’s choking sobs; an old man’s death rattle; the multi-billion groaning of the planet, being devoured alive by the black hole - that was the voice she spoke to me. Fleeing universes; cold, red, giant corpses of once living and hot stars; lifeless stone balls, spinning in the void - that's what I saw, having come close to her. All that could be said was said; all that could be lost was lost; all that made sense, became senseless. At last I was alone, alone in the literal sense of this word, but even loneliness requires clarification. "The noun, the inanimate, the middle genus," I clarified, and at the same moment I understood the meaning of the lesson, which had previously eluded the one who always was

the unthinkable
inscrutable complacent
dazzlingly bright nought

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