Rapture is to see the end of a long day. In the end, all the buzzing events and busy work unites in a crescendo of another twenty-four hours handed out, and time carefully imitates the fading energy of a wind-up toy. Even as the clock runs short, many scurry about trying to fulfill to-do lists and not to forget, forget all the precious, important, useless tasks they simply must do. The hands of the clock fall into a slow waltz that dreads the toll that signals the end of the dance. The music slows, the notes blur, and a pair of tired feet will find themselves stilled once more. A waning sun throws a brilliant cast on the sky to remind those absorbed in their petty lives that she still exists, before slipping gracefully beyond the horizon, her veil of bright colors trailing behind her with lingering regret, caressing their lover the sky and saying ‘until tomorrow, my darling’. The inky blue night drapes itself languorously on the world and it is the hour of rest. In that singular moment of frozen time when all the lightning fast thoughts come crashing into each other at full speed and the neck reaches to embrace the pillow, Time’s breath catches in its throat. And when the body greets the bed and the back of the head slams against the pillow, a million breaths of a million words spoken that day rush so quickly from the body that it shudders in ecstasy as ever muscle relaxes with the knowledge that the long day is over. The World gives the sigh of an ocean.
It is then that the constant bubble of incessant chatter splinters, and the silence
descends. It is a silence so complete and utterly absent of noise. A silence seemingly full with the thoughts reminders, reflections, and mental filing of the day, but that is in truth vacuous. This vanishing of noise is bone penetrating, heavy, such that the dead weight of it all pushes your thoughts clear to the back of your brain and pulls the eyelids shut with the heavy force of gravity. This darkness methodically wraps its tendrils around the limbs, torso, and head and within a matter of minutes tugs it all down into the non-existence of sleep, a forceful smothering of active thoughts. With one last glimpse of consciousness, recognition of the need to succumb to the suffocating release of sleep, welcome the darkness, and regretfully relinquish hold on the day arises. At last slip into the dark recesses of the subconscious. Another day gone, to never be recovered.