The Darkness Near Ariel

Ron Koppelberger

The Darkness Near Aerial

Consigned to the conditional, rare circumstance, Aerial found himself in a barren expanse of mud, fallen leaves from the late fall season and the deep inky darkness that sleep and the advent of death reveals. He wrapped his arms around his shoulders and sighed cool puffs of dank air. But what for the dream, he had aspirations, intended futures in drama, were they written in sand? What would Amy do without him? Sweet, sure in poise and beauty, sweet Amy, his love, his breath in frigid airs of disarray.
The sorcery had gone in divergent paths of darkness; here all darkness and shadow, there bleeding a sliver of scarlet light, to move ahead, toward the crimson horizon, the impossible crack of light. He stepped into the shadows from shadows, from silhouettes in darkness unto deeper darkness; the sorcery and dear Amy, the love of his life. How had he done it, how had he brought the black caste of infinity to the land?

“Carry me to the gates

Of Shemar, he had said, by a

Tear drop of blood and the spit

Of a dead man he had sung.”

The sky had receded to form a blanket of ebony cotton, an apex reaching upward in distant rungs, by Jacobs Ladder and Jacks bean stalk, up and away. How would he return the sun or find it again?
The sorcery had done the deed. He was distraught, shriveled by the sorcery. Aerial pushed toward the orange beacon in the distant sky and prayed, burying the sorcery and a piece of himself in the cool mud that squished between his toes. Taboos and visions of dark laughter, “bury the sorcery.” he said aloud to the sprigs of ragweed and leagues of lichens, moss and sodden earth.
His arms flailed forward as he reached into the pitch-black misunderstanding, the awareness of a reconciled sorcery, the betrothal of night eternal and depths of confusion. Aerial moved forward and finally the velvet veil lifted revealing an unfinished landscape, tinged by yellow sunshine and lined in fading inks. Unfinished, a prospect of future dreams, unfinished. Aerial stepped forward to meet Amy and the dawn of a new day, with love and heartfelt character, the chaos gone, dreams in place of the darkness and empty vials of liquid hell, behind , forever forgotten, for his Amy, for his sanity and the sake of mankind.