I was told to fear the darkness. I was never warned about the fog, but the fog is full of monsters waiting behind the wisps.
The darkness has a name. It slips from beneath our feet and leaves us sliding down, into the abyss. The darkness tastes of anguish and smells of regret. We can feel it in our bones, crushing our souls.
When I call out for comfort from the darkness, I am met with candles of hope to guide me. There are arms outstretched, because we have all been taught to fear the darkness.
The fog has no name. It has no shape, no density, no pathway through. It is quicksand, and my numbness is ballast enough to keep me from drowning.
Sometimes the fog is worse than the darkness. There is an imperativeness to the darkness, a need to escape, a drive to find solid ground even as the filigree fingers of a thousand demons wrap around my chest.
But the fog exists to seduce everything else into its meaningless quagmire. The desperation of the darkness is matched by the acedia of the fog, siphoning off need and replacing it with a suffocating ennui until, like the fog, I have lost my own name as well.
Clio 02.17.21