Journey through Darkness

There are very few people who have access to the interior alleys of my life, especially of my past. It is so very frightening to let people walk through the narrow corridors of my tainted life, gathering moss all around, and smelling of filth and decay. My real self is so very different from the one which I pose before people, and there would be very few people who would be willing to accept my true self. Even some of my very close friends dare not walk through the dark alleys of my life, for fear they may have to look at me as someone very different from who they were used to, and that would be too frightening for them to believe, leave alone accept. Thus in most cases I would like everyone around me to believe that my true self is an exact copy of my exterior self. That is how I cheat the world around me.

I know that I have to keep doing this “cheating” for the sake of survival. I cannot afford to wash my dirty linen in public, what will others think about me? The world likes people who are fair-skinned, and it does not even mind people with colored faces; the world cannot accept people who are uncouth, rustic, who are closer to the earth. The world we live in cannot think of the heart of darkness or the darkness of the heart. It is amidst the thick darkness of the heart that I treasure some of the most precious secrets of my life, which is inaccessible to everyone I know of. Even some of my thick friends may not have access to this corner; it may be too frightening to visit this place, because here they might encounter the raw, natural I, and they may not even recognize me.

Yesterday as I was walking along the prestigious Park Street, on my evening brisk walk, I spotted one of the nuns, who was known to me. I went close to her and wished her, but she could not recognize me for quite a while, because she had seen me in my T-shirt and shorts, and she could not believe it was me. After a little while she recognized me, and said that I looked very different. And she was right, I looked very different. If this is the case for people to recognize me, how difficult it would be for them to recognize my real self? How would they respond were they to come to know the darkest secrets of my life, which of shrouded in mystery? Will they be able to accept the unholy, filthy, corrupt self of mine, which is far from the image I had been projecting to them?

There are just one or two people who were able to enter into the secret corners of my heart and have befriended the demon who bears my name; they have realized that this ferocious demon is not as cruel and horrendous as they thought it to be; there is a human heart to it, and it may be more human than several other human persons they know of. It is thanks to their presence that I am able to walk out even without putting on the cloth of a genteel man, who has been tamed by nature to be one of the finest of civilized men. But I cannot forget what had happened in the early years of my life, the different persons who had shaped me and molded me.

It is hard to safeguard the most treasured secrets of my life; I know that I cannot safeguard them all my life, though I had striven earnestly to protect them from men and women who really did not share my vision of life, and who did not want to share my life. But I don’t know how long I could do that, but one thing is for sure, soon I may lose control over these secrets, and they would become annals of every household, and I would see both praise and brickbats for my words and works. If someone dared to cut me into pieces and find my heart, he/she would realize that I had a heart which is so very human and tender, which cries for life, for a clear sky, for the full moon light, for the golden rays of the sun, for the unpolluted air of countryside, for clean waters of the stream… Life is wonderful really!