Do you need, desire or crave a new challenge? Are you open to sharing your dark side? Then read on.
Do you have a dark side?
Or, think you may have one. Or indeed worry that you might have one. Or, for that matter, worry that you don’t and would like one? If so, join me here each week for dark | side | thursday.
Over a period of 52 weeks, I am writing a story. A dark story that will unfold as the weeks pass. Each Thursday, at 13:00 UTC, I will post a new chapter. Each chapter will be exactly 500 words long, and will be accompanied by a photograph. You can catch up on the story so far by clicking here on dark | side | thursday
Share your dark side?
I invite you to join me either by writing your own dark story, week by week, or, if that is too much, by dropping by, now and then, perhaps when the mood suits you or, perhaps, when it doesn’t, and by sharing a photograph, poem or a suitably dark piece of prose. To cross over to dark | side | thursday create your post, tag it dark side thursday and link to it by clicking on the dark | side | thursday badge below, where you can also find all the contributions so far. Or you can simply share your link in the comments section of my weekly post. And, should the mood take you, you can add the badge to your post.
dark | side | thursday | thirtynine
One second was all that stood between them.
Between success and failure, between darkness and light.
One second.
Two worlds (more).
Separated by one single, solitary, second. Less than a blink of an eye.
And yet, world’s apart.
Two universes separated by a second.
As he watched the two figures approach the hole he knew, that, from where he stood, he would see the two parallel scenarios unfolding.
‘Your mind is just a program. And I’m the virus’*
The thin man, no longer smiling, continued to look at the screen, continued to speak.
‘You have been programmed for this moment. You are mine. You have no thought that is not mine. No will, no desire, no fear, no happiness, no lust. Nothing, that is not mine. Do you understand?’
He looked back at the screen. The image had frozen, then stuttered back to life. The couple were no longer together. The taller figure, dressed in black, had approached the hole in the ground. The second figure had retreated, into the distance, into the ether.
‘What you are seeing is what might have happened, or, more precisely you are observing two parallel moments that might have happened, separated by a single second. I could show you more, much more. If I were I to do so, you would almost surely not survive the experience. Did you know that there is no single flow of time? Not one time, but an infinite number of times, separated by a single second, backwards and forwards. An infinite sequence of times, separated one from the other, each by a single second. Each time differing from the next by the decisions taken in a split second. Can you imagine what might happen if it were possible to travel between those moments?’
He watched as the taller figure lay prone on that cold ground, watched as the figure, dressed in black, groped into the darkness, his fingers scrabbling at the edge of that cold hole.
‘He is not aware of his destiny, for him time travels in a simple linear fashion, one second follows the next. As he gropes in the dark, he can’t see the shades of his infinite past, present and future states that might exist (or not). For him, there is only his now, always his now, no past, no present and no future.’
The thin man turned away from the screen. With a swift click of his fingers the screen faded and disappeared.
‘It’s now time for you to learn more. And yes, it is natural for you to be confused. You have suffered much, and you have caused much suffering. I think you know that there are consequences. There are always consequences. You do know that, don’t you?’
He looked at the thin man, unable to comment, unable to think.
The thin man turned and, with a gentle susurration, a door opened.
A figure stood at the door, a dark figure.
He looked at that figure.
The figure looked back.
At himself.
The portal to dark | side | thursday opened on the twenty first day of may in the year twenty hundred and fifteen and will remain open for fifty two weeks.
thirtynine | fiftytwo
* Lyrics from Psycho, by Muse
andy townend 