lesson in joy

In a dark room I find myself crawling and climbing, my fingernails scratching at corners and walls. This feels frighteningly like the room I was born in, small and dark and two-dementional like everything outside has also become. I've grown too weary to fight it. Searching, searching, always searching for that pin prick of light that will crack into a way of escape. Feeling rising panic choke out my throat, wondering if there really is nothing outside this box except it's critics. Almost believing this must be so, and yet not alone. Somehow, even in lonliness, not ever quite alone.

Confusion is the least of my worries, as I am mute and heartbroken as well as blind. How can this be? Tears begin to course down my cheeks as my searching becomes more frantic, throwing myself against the walls, my muscles straining until the skin turns white. Don't leave me here to live, I begin to beg, my mute lips moving in still silence. The darkness crushes in like hands on every side, holding my thrashing limbs still until I am sobbing in terror. All I want is to be rid of it, this opression of the soul.

At last my silent cries reach a wail, and I colapse in utter defeat. There is no more hope. It is then that the hands of time pull back, allowing the air to rush in around me. There is stillness. My racing heart has exausted its self, and it slows to a steady beat. It is still dark, with not a point of light for my sightless eyes, but slowly I climb to my feet. My fingers curl into fists, determination embodied in the bloodied knuckles streatched over the bones. And in that silence, in that darkness, I begin to whisper with a voice I did not know I had. And this is what I say:

I will serve You.

Over and over will I repeat it, never shouting, not deigning to beat the walls or the floor again. Over and over will I say it until the light comes in. There is nothing more certain than this.