Free My Life in Darkness by Harrison Drake

I looked around.
    There was writing on the walls, illegible from where I lay, and it looked like every knife, fork, screwdriver he owned had been stabbed into the walls, floor and ceiling.
    I knew then exactly what had happened, I saw them hiding in the corners watching, waiting. They had come for him, just like they had for me. And just like me, he didn’t know that they were there to help. It was almost too late by the time I figured it out-I’d almost done the same.
    I cut the rope and his body fell to the ground, limp. I held him in my arms and wept as they crawled and flew out from the corners to gather around us. They formed a circle, sitting peacefully on the plush carpet, their light bodies barely sinking in.
    And they wept. Tears of machine oil streamed from their glass eyes, staining the off-white carpet a pale brown. I had never seen such sorrow, such sadness at the loss of a life before. It wasn’t just me, it was all of them—mine and his—gathered to mourn the loss of a wonderful man.
    Yet it makes me wonder—are they hallucinations? Or are they real and we’re the only ones to see them? How could we both see the same thing, have the same delusions? They’re with me again, all of them, as they try to lend me their strength and resolve. And everything they give me, I soak up with abandon.
    They’re all I have left.
    I wish you could have met my son, had a chance to speak to him. I’m sure you saw him-from a distance at least-saw the man that he was, that same fire in his eyes that drew me to you. But he never came with me when I went to talk to you, and when you came over to me, he was always elsewhere.
    You would’ve liked him, and I know that he would’ve liked you. Do you remember when we were kids? When I told you about my favourite book? We’re on his island now, the island Alexander Selkirk marooned himself on and lived on alone for almost four and a half years. It’s believed that was the story that Daniel Defoe used when he wrote Robinson Crusoe .
    I want to stay here, marooned and alone, the way my life has always been. Just a series of shipwrecks, one after the other, with me always the sole survivor. Is it luck, or a curse?
    Two minutes and twenty-four seconds. A chance for atonement. I’ll spread his ashes at totality, commit his soul to the darkness.

MAY 11, 2078
     
     
    Dear Lena,
     
    It pains me that I had to miss the last eclipse. Doctor’s orders. That being said, I’m lucky to even be here today. Pneumonia at my age is never a good thing but I knew I had to fight it, I had to live to see the darkness at least one more time.
    They were there with me of course, waiting throughout my hospital room giving little buzzes of encouragement. I swear through sleep-strained eyes I saw one, its tiny pincers manipulating my IV. Maybe I owe them the credit. Strength and will have never been great assets of mine.
    I can only hope that I survive to the next. We’ll be heading back to Canada, just past my hundredth birthday. But we’re in the here and now, and when I’m done writing this I’ll walk right up to you and your ever-extending family and speak to you once more.
    You never remarried, never brought another man after your husband died. I look back over the years, nearly four decades, and in my memories I see you watching me, coy glances cast in my direction, a faint lilt in your voice as we spoke, a feather’s touch on my skin as you brushed past. I’d been given another chance and I failed once more, the thought of telling you the truth has always been too difficult for me.
    And here we are, at the end of our lives, both standing in varying degrees of loneliness. With generations of family around one would never ascribe the term ‘lonely’ to you, but I can see in the dying embers behind those sapphire eyes a certain longing, one that I myself have always known.
    Do I tell you now? Would it change anything? I keep these letters with me, all of them, every time we come. They