A metaphorical original short story about a world burdened by racial discrimination.
When I awoke from my nap yesterday, the faceless man was seated in front of me.He sat on the dilapidated pail across from where I had been sleeping, hidden by the infinite darkness that prevailed in these areas, waiting to devour my impoverished soul. A darkness so profound, a darkness that could tear right through the flesh of any normal man. But I was never normal; at least that’s what they said. They said we were different. But I think we’re special; we’re unique. We’re stronger.
The faceless man, having visited me for the fourth time this week, stared straight at me with a pair of imaginary eyes upon a face that wasn’t. Our singular hope in this domain of agony, the faceless man, arrives to relieve us of our miseries, silently draining all hope of life. It’s he who holds the key to a parallel realm where mankind lives in harmony, a realm where the souls of the weak and fallen ultimately rest. Is my end near?
I often peeked through a small hole in our wall to see nothing but darkness. However, beyond the vast empire of darkness, we saw light, a light that would never brighten our blackened skin, a light fortified by an extraordinary wall. Indeed, it was a grand wall that guarded luminescent lands yonder, lands inhabited by those who were ‘normal’. But I'm confident that one day we'll feel that rich earth beneath our naked, crippled feet.
It seemed like yesterday when that once ubiquitous light was felt by us all, and the empire of darkness ceased to exist, for there was a time when we all dwelt upon the same grounds, but those were times long forgotten. I guess Heraclitus was right; "change is the only constant in life." But it was that same "change" that led to the resurrection of an unforgiving darkness, the same darkness where we will forever drink the wine of suffering and eat the bread of death, as we anxiously await the end of our penurious years.
But "change" also moulded a far-off world led by science and technology, where life endlessly grows and civilisations flourish, a world immune to darkness, like an ever-burning candle in a dark room of shadows. Cast away from the humanity I vaguely remember, we remain isolated in the darkness of poverty that perpetually lingers alongside light. Fighting for our rights as humans, we are outcasts from society. Masked by the shadows of those exquisite structures and cast away from the heavenly bubble of development, we will forever scrimmage to survive. I could hear the screams of our dreams as they burned on a pyre in the hands of those in the light.
For generations to come, we will live in this darkness, anticipating our reconciliation with humanity and the one true world. We hope that one day, despite being forever exposed to the stinging rain and prey to all creatures of the night, we will sense that holy light upon our inferior skin.
Today, I awoke to be greeted by the splendid sight of the quotidian dark. But weirdly enough, the faceless man was nowhere to be seen. His imaginary eyes were no longer gazing at me from his face that wasn’t. His sweet bite was no longer feeding upon my soul, for my soul had long since gone, and the final passing I had been anticipating had finally arrived. Hoping that one day we may all be united, whether from Dark or Light, I bid farewell to the darkness, now splendid...
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