It is dark in here.

The shades are open, but no light pours through the windows. I stare hard, trying to pierce the inky blackness but to no avail. It is still the darkness that has engulfed the room for hours, for days, for years. I cannot remember the last time I saw the radiance of dawn. Now I only experience various gradations of light that seem to emerge from all four corners of the room; it lightens the blackness every once in while but fails to achieve more than a dusky greyness.

It is dark in here.

The bulb has burnt out, the filament charred, the glass cracked. It absorbs electricity but sheds no light. The candles burn but fail to lighten the darkness. I light the torch, but the glow cannot penetrate the murk. It is as if illumination cannot exist in the room.The blackness absorbs the light.

It is dark in here.

Sometimes the blackness frightens me. Though I have lived in this room for what seems like forever, a sudden panic occasionally seizes me. I feel alone, isolated, forced to suffer without the light of day, without the sight of my friends, or my enemies. I feel that this might be a punishment, locked in this wall-less, door-less room. It is the comparable antithesis of Hades; eternal darkness instead of eternal fire, infinite cold instead of infinite heat; but still there is the suffering - both as evil as could be imagined. And when this fear engulfs me, I must face the truth and sit back in the blackness.

It is dark in here.

But I have become accustomed to the ebony light. I can taste the room, smell the room, hear the room, feel the room. It is salty and bitter, sweet and sour. It is pungent and caustic, perfumed and fragrant. It is loud and clamorous, quiet and still. It is hard and sharp, soft and smooth. I can move about the room better than the others I know who are outside but who cannot see. And though there is no light to see by, there is enough to think by. The blackness embraces my thoughts and allows me greater freedom. I feel almost privileged to live in this room. The obscurity is not only my enemy but also my ally. It makes me who I am.

It is dark in here.

But only when I allow it to be. 1