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The Only Thing We Have To Fear Challenge
If You Light Up the Darkness…
By Sergio ‘ente per ente’ Palumbo
Heddwen didn’t remember much, truth be told, and everything around her was a bit confusing. What was not clear in her mind was why she was there and where ‘there’ was exactly.
However, she held an oil lamp, which could make the difference. It was an Argand-type lamp and had a large fuel reservoir in a tank as high as the object itself that forced fuel into the wick. Since a Swiss chemist had invented it at the end of 1700s, it had allowed people to stop using candles or shallow bowls with a small rag floating in animal fats, which frequently gave off more smoke than light. She was capable of switching it on and off, though she was a woman who was mainly used to prepare food, cleaning the house and doing gardening.
In the 1800s, lamps like that were used as much for ornamentation in rooms of typical British houses, than as a source of light, and her home wasn’t any different. Heddwen remembered she had seven of them throughout her two-story house in Cardiff, Wales. She was aware that the main disadvantage of such Argand lamps was that the oil reservoir needed to be above the level of the burner because the heavy, sticky vegetable oil would not rise far up the wick.
Heddwen knew that object was the key to knowing much more about that place, though she was afraid to use it - with good reason.
Turning back to the question of where she was now, she simply didn’t know. There was darkness all around her, apart from a feeble luminescence coming through the slits in the shutter that covered the window on her left. She knew what that brilliance was: the dim light from the Moon that shone outside. But it wasn’t enough to light-up the entire space she was in. There was only one way to get a better look – to light the lamp and look at what stood nearby. But the last time she had tried, what she had seen before her eyes had deeply scared her.
However, there was no other way. She wanted to know the truth and for that she had to turn the lamp on.
Slowly the woman remembered that this was not the first night she had found herself here, even though she didn’t know how many nights had gone by, and she still lacked a sense about where ‘here’ truly was.
Heddwen had to move, she knew that. She got up the courage and stretched her slim, pale fingers towards the wick. The glass chimney of the lamp allowed light to be thrown in all directions but the glow only lit up a short distance. That wasn’t what worried her, as even a small peek was too much.
Then it happened again! As soon as the lamp spread its faint brilliance around, the woman started hearing those strange whispers.
At first, the woman thought that those might be coming from thin air but then she noticed the pale shades associated with the words and a great fear took over her. There were always those pale ghosts! They stood in the room, just a few steps away. Slowly, the grayish, noiseless figures started walking towards her, saying something unclear.
“Follllloooow usss…listen to usss…” and the strange words went on and on.
“Leave me alone…Go away!” Heddwen replied.
As those words and the slow moves of those shadowy figures continued, the only thought that came to her mind was running away. But it was exactly what she had done the night before – or on all the previous nights? She was not so sure by now... She decided to run to the farthest corner of the room - which was when she stumbled into the armchair that stood next to the wall.
As soon as the woman reached it, she recognized the shape of the armchair and also noticed that there was something on it. Or somebody…
A slim figure sat there, a silent expression on her emaciated face. The body itself looked old, slender, motionless, and stuck in a strange position. Then Heddwen’s eyes met the unmoving pupils of the figure and she saw that it was a woman. A dead woman.
How long had she been here?
And then, another thought seized her mind because Heddwen recognized her features and she remembered the clothes the corpse wore. This was when a great sadness filled her. The dead figure was herself, there was no uncertainty about that fact: she looked at the traits although they were much skinnier than she remembered. This was her in the parlor, the place where Heddwen stayed during the long evenings before she fixed dinner for herself.
Since the day the last of her lovers had died, she had lived alone in that house. She had never had any children or any next of kin who lived in Wales who might have come to visit. So Heddwen had stayed there alone until she died of a stroke. It was obvious that her dead body had been sitting there alone for a long time, though she couldn’t be sure about how long.
Now she recognized what those whispers were: the calling of her dead lovers who had died in that same house and whose souls must have gotten stuck there after their deaths.
As she heard those words again, calling her name, she knew why she was so scared and sad. And so, once again, her fingers went back to the Argand lamp and switched it off.
Soon darkness filled everything again. Here she wanted to remain in silence, in the dark, without being able to see her corpse that lay nearby. The pale figure wanted to rest for a while and force all of that out of her mind. Perhaps it would simply be better to forget all about her demise.
But was it, really?
The End