Darkness...I've heard a lot of people say that the thing about the dark is it doesn't have a sound. Liken to silence, it seems to absorb the waves of anger, the cries of sorrow, and the melody of happy. In perfect darkness, there is nothing, no annoying ticking of the wall clock or chirping of a cricket trying hard to find a date for the night...in fact, there is no sound at all, except the beating of your own heart and the short intakes of breath as your body slowly allows itself to be equally absorbed and engulfed.

There are no shadows in darkness since shades are only present where they can find refuge in the light. In truth, unlike the darkness, shadows need the light, and don't run from it as most would tell you. Darkness, though, is different than those....it devours light as light, in turn, will come to devour it. The cycle has no break, no stopping, and no returning.

Yet, in the darkness, there are voices, ones that whisper where silence has allowed them purchase to those who listen hard. Each one speaks of different things....of dinosaurs conquering imagined worlds that consist of switch and dial mountains and lakes made of shimmering glass...of mumbled prayers hoped to reach unhearing ears and unyielding pride, gently read scriptures rolling off believing tongue...Ghosts that have lived and died protecting what honors them most, gone from the world, but having left memories behind still echoing off engine and bulkhead.

Among those are other sounds...cattle gently calling to each other, chewing on hay lay scattered over the ground...of laughter as one more basket is made to tie the game...of shouts and gunfire and pain as yet another job takes its toll, but never once taking them down...still there...always here.

Absolute darkness holding tight to the starless night...the moon captured by the unrelenting clouds. A firefly sits...her light stolen to be reclaimed at dawn...the one word written on her hull, a trail of black ash marring her beauty, but then what was beauty without a bit of character...

Serenity...peace within the darkness...the silence...a lone figure resting against her frame...a hand rolls over a war torn body, eyes no longer able to guide in the dark, but instinct and memory pick up where they lack. Herein lay solitude, a place to escape the demand, the protective nature impossible to shake...a part longed for an end, but remembers why the fight.

Freedom...from what or who, there is no answer...the once strong enemy destroyed with just one blow...friends lost to a cause that seemed now to matter little...governments corrupt as they are corrupted...had not that been a life lesson taught early on. Voices echoing....of slinky dresses and graveyard confessions....of faith fixing and wild hair days.

Darkness, I've heard....there is no sound....but in the silence...there is but one that is deafening....regret, sorrow, and pain....for it is not in the noise of day to day that our true selves are uncloaked....but in the darkness, do our ghosts and skeletons reveal.

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AN- I know not my normal, this was a cocktail of remembering what was important and just sitting in the dark....sadly, the clock and crickets were present....please feedback welcome. This is my first without the benefit of my OCs so hope you all enjoy!