WEBVTT

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Darkness by Charles Hilend Craig I am
told that coincidence in a story is an

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element for which editors and readers have
a dislike, which approaches the sparkling.

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But if a story be thirty three
and a third percent of each coincidence imagination

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on the part of the principal character
and irony, what then Coincidence, which

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is another name for destiny, played
its trump early in the life of Graham

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Fletcher, in fact, before his
life began, but it was many years

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before the stakes were dragged across the
table of life and into the lap of

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a sneering fate. He had all
started when his father, John Fletcher,

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was carried home after a terrific explosion
in which he lost an arm and the

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sight in two perfectly good eyes.
His young wife fainted at the horror of

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it, and only a week later
Graham Fletcher was born into the world.

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While on the wall opposite the mother's
bed, a dread phantom played hide and

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seek with the tremendous human eye,
the half of which was missing, And

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the years which followed baared mute witness
that in that terrible hour a gargantuan fear

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was transmitted to the soul of young
Fletcher a fear of blindness. Two.

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The daily sight of his stricken father
had its influence upon the boy as he

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passed through his early youth blindness indelibly
there was seared on his brain, the

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fear of it, the horror of
it. It was when he was fourteen

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that a prophecy was made about him. Now the fortune teller had given ample

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proof that she was just as elaborate
a liar as the average fortune teller is

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supposed to be. She didn't try
to tell his fortune in the orthodox way,

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however, in fact, he didn't
want her to tell it. It

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so happened that young Graham was just
as full of old nick as any boy.

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It seemed human nature to him,
then, to hurl pebbles at the

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horse tied behind the gypsy's wagon.
He meant no real harm, but that

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did not prevent a jagged pebble from
striking an eye of one of the horses

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in such a manner as to cause
the animal to scream fearfully, while blood

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spurted from the injured optic. The
wrath of the woman fell upon the boy.

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Hoarsely. She spoke to him in
broken English for that you pay.

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Hey, see you blind this horse. One day you be blind too,

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then you die. No doubt she
would have done more than prophesy had it

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not been for the crowd near at
hand. But it was more than enough.

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She had set her mark upon the
so of young Graham Fletcher. He

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would not forget. And so was
another coincidence born almost an inexcusable one.

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The years passed deeper and deeper into
the being of Graham Fletcher pushed that phantom

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of unrest. He had gone home
crying after the incident with the fortune teller,

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but he was never to forget.
It was shortly after that that his

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imagination began to work. Overtime.
He had bad dreams. That was the

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first development. In these dreams,
he saw a hideous old hag with vulpine

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features and hawk like claws striving to
reach his face his eyes. Bad dreams

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at night, if continued, easily, give rise to day dreams. Now,

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day dreams are supposed to be pleasant. They are if you sleep well.

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But Graham Fletcher didn't, and so
he began to see things even in

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the day. Many things happened which
increased his fear. There was the time

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a hard bodied little bug got into
his eye. It sickened him, but

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his terror overcame. Even the feeling
of nausea. A life in utter dark,

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such as that his father was leading, stared him in the face.

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He was afraid. Of course,
there had been other incidents. Once he

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had tried to play football, a
rough tackle which resulted in a black eye,

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put the taboo upon that forever.
Then there was the incident of the

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automobile race, when a driver ran
through the fence and a splinter of board

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struck Fletcher in the face, breaking
his glasses and cutting a deep gash under

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the left eye. The whole world, it seemed, was conspiring to do

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with the sight of Graham Fletcher.
Thereafter, he never attended the races,

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and though he needed spectacles, he
never wore them. Fletcher, of course,

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had his recurrent nightmare. Strange to
relate. The old gipsy woman failed

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to appear again. Instead, it
was something intangible yet quite real, which

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oppressed him. The change made it
all the more certain he was doomed.

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He never could figure out his illusion
satisfactorily. Sometimes he seemed to be crushed

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under a weight that all the power
of the world could not move. Again,

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it seemed that he was dropped through
infinite space, always though there was

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a sense of his eyes being dragged
out of him. At first, his

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awakenings would be with tears, Then
as he grew older, he would awaken

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in a state of cold, clammy
sweat. After the dream, there was

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little sleep for him again the same
night. It was when he was nineteen

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that he felt claws on his eyes. Thereafter, he left the light burning

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in his room when he went to
bed. It was only natural that Fletcher

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should try to find things to keep
him occupied, so that he would have

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no time to think of his illusions. He kept busy, but the phantoms

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continued to come. He welcomed with
avidity the chance to go into the north

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Woods for a short stay with two
friends. For a time, Fletcher was

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so busily engaged in the hunt that
he forgot his troubles. All would have

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gone well, perhaps, had he
not been left alone That night in the

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cabin, Jones and Gordon tramped over
to the station together to get supplies.

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They promised to be back before dark, and Fletcher had no premonition of impending

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disaster. During the afternoon, he
had hiked through the woods and later wrote

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several letters. It was when the
shadows became a bit flickery that Graham Fletcher

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felt the chill of the bitter cold
creep through him. Twilight fell. The

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black shadow among the trees had arms, now arms that groped for him,

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blind arms. They were blind.
He fled to the safety of the cabin.

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For a few minutes, the light
gave him comfort. Then he saw

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the shadows in the cabin, shadows
that moved. He jerked open the cupboard

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and took down a flat bottle.
He tasted the liquid, drank. He

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tried to read, but the shadows
kept creeping up one side of the page.

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The shadows sometimes they seemed to form
claws, claws that reached for his

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eyes. He drank again and again. Then he decided that his partners had

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stayed over at the station, so
he went to bed, leaving the light

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burning on the table. He put
the flashlight near him. His thoughts eased

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back over other days. He kept
his mind from the specter, and finally

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fell asleep. He dreamed. This
time a new trouble beset him. That

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bottle whiskey. He had read of
a number of deaths resulting from the drinking

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of wood alcohol in liquor. Now
he tossed feverishly, and after a while

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went to sleep again. The tall, old fashioned clock, to which he

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had paid scant attention, awakened him
when it struck seven. He lay for

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a moment, thinking seven the sun
would be up. And blackness was like

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a pall about him. It was
thick, hideous. He could almost feel

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it, hear it, taste it. Blackness. Could it be that he

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had heard wrong? That it was
still night? No where the lamp had

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been left burning on the table,
he could see no light. A cry

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of agonized dismay burst from his lips. His senses reeled, but by a

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powerful effort of his will, he
was able to reach the flashlight full into

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his eyes. He left it for
a long minute. There was no answering

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glow. God, he said,
Ah, fool that you are, Graham

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Fletcher. Had you but looked at
the oil lamp, you would have realized

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that it would not burn more than
an hour? And did you not throw

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away the useless battery in the flashlight? Yourself blind? You are not blind,

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Graham Fletcher, but you do not
know this. You are moaning softly

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as you reach for the gun beside
your bed. It is but the work

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of a moment to put the end
of the barrel in your mouth and push

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the trigger with your toe. There
destiny has raked the table clean once more.

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Jones and Gordon were appalled when they
saw the body of the suicide stretched

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out on the floor. No possible
motive made itself apparent to them. I

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suggest that this was a story or
coincidence. There is but one thing more.

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It is for the friends to glance
at the clock, note that it

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is five hours fast, and buy
some hocus pocus, decide at what hour

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their friend took his own life.
But they don't look, and therein is

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the irony. The clock will tick
merrily on until it has run down.

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The End of Darkness by Charles Hill
and Craig