Death Valley

I was enveloped in a blackness. An absence of light. Not the one compared to white in art but wholly dark contrasted by the memory of light in the hours before. The road was only visible two arm lengths in front of us. We invented the road with our sight. And at the salt flat, the car lights dimmed and then there was no marker of position. The length in front of us could have been wobbling into unintelligible land or the stars could have floated down and they were actually just that tiny and not far away. We were moving in a mushy net of not knowing distance and not knowing each other. We were caressed by the occasional breath or hmm but words would not make sense in this timeplace. Words would not apply. This was what I read about night in children books. This was what they meant by Peter Pan swooping in and waking them from their dreams. I realized the things around me could really just not be there. The people around me were undefined by their bodies. I couldn’t see their bodies but I could feel their breath and their thoughts. They were large. They were the sky too. We were not really separate. We shared not knowing where we were. We walked close by to hear the footsteps but we still weren’t sure what we were stepping on. The car could have been miles away or just feet. Measurement didn’t make sense in this darkness.

People want to know what darkness is so they try to use a flashlight to find out.