Darkness by Charles Hilend Craig I am told that coincidence in a story is an
element for which editors and readers have a dislike, which approaches the sparkling.
But if a story be thirty three and a third percent of each coincidence imagination
on the part of the principal character and irony, what then Coincidence, which
is another name for destiny, played its trump early in the life of Graham
Fletcher, in fact, before his life began, but it was many years
before the stakes were dragged across the table of life and into the lap of
a sneering fate. He had all started when his father, John Fletcher,
was carried home after a terrific explosion in which he lost an arm and the
sight in two perfectly good eyes. His young wife fainted at the horror of
it, and only a week later Graham Fletcher was born into the world.
While on the wall opposite the mother's bed, a dread phantom played hide and
seek with the tremendous human eye, the half of which was missing, And
the years which followed baared mute witness that in that terrible hour a gargantuan fear
was transmitted to the soul of young Fletcher a fear of blindness. Two.
The daily sight of his stricken father had its influence upon the boy as he
passed through his early youth blindness indelibly there was seared on his brain, the
fear of it, the horror of it. It was when he was fourteen
that a prophecy was made about him. Now the fortune teller had given ample
proof that she was just as elaborate a liar as the average fortune teller is
supposed to be. She didn't try to tell his fortune in the orthodox way,
however, in fact, he didn't want her to tell it. It
so happened that young Graham was just as full of old nick as any boy.
It seemed human nature to him, then, to hurl pebbles at the
horse tied behind the gypsy's wagon. He meant no real harm, but that
did not prevent a jagged pebble from striking an eye of one of the horses
in such a manner as to cause the animal to scream fearfully, while blood
spurted from the injured optic. The wrath of the woman fell upon the boy.
Hoarsely. She spoke to him in broken English for that you pay.
Hey, see you blind this horse. One day you be blind too,
then you die. No doubt she would have done more than prophesy had it
not been for the crowd near at hand. But it was more than enough.
She had set her mark upon the so of young Graham Fletcher. He
would not forget. And so was another coincidence born almost an inexcusable one.
The years passed deeper and deeper into the being of Graham Fletcher pushed that phantom
of unrest. He had gone home crying after the incident with the fortune teller,
but he was never to forget. It was shortly after that that his
imagination began to work. Overtime. He had bad dreams. That was the
first development. In these dreams, he saw a hideous old hag with vulpine
features and hawk like claws striving to reach his face his eyes. Bad dreams
at night, if continued, easily, give rise to day dreams. Now,
day dreams are supposed to be pleasant. They are if you sleep well.
But Graham Fletcher didn't, and so he began to see things even in
the day. Many things happened which increased his fear. There was the time
a hard bodied little bug got into his eye. It sickened him, but
his terror overcame. Even the feeling of nausea. A life in utter dark,
such as that his father was leading, stared him in the face.
He was afraid. Of course, there had been other incidents. Once he
had tried to play football, a rough tackle which resulted in a black eye,
put the taboo upon that forever. Then there was the incident of the
automobile race, when a driver ran through the fence and a splinter of board
struck Fletcher in the face, breaking his glasses and cutting a deep gash under
the left eye. The whole world, it seemed, was conspiring to do
with the sight of Graham Fletcher. Thereafter, he never attended the races,
and though he needed spectacles, he never wore them. Fletcher, of course,
had his recurrent nightmare. Strange to relate. The old gipsy woman failed
to appear again. Instead, it was something intangible yet quite real, which
oppressed him. The change made it all the more certain he was doomed.
He never could figure out his illusion satisfactorily. Sometimes he seemed to be crushed
under a weight that all the power of the world could not move. Again,
it seemed that he was dropped through infinite space, always though there was
a sense of his eyes being dragged out of him. At first, his
awakenings would be with tears, Then as he grew older, he would awaken
in a state of cold, clammy sweat. After the dream, there was
little sleep for him again the same night. It was when he was nineteen
that he felt claws on his eyes. Thereafter, he left the light burning
in his room when he went to bed. It was only natural that Fletcher
should try to find things to keep him occupied, so that he would have
no time to think of his illusions. He kept busy, but the phantoms
continued to come. He welcomed with avidity the chance to go into the north
Woods for a short stay with two friends. For a time, Fletcher was
so busily engaged in the hunt that he forgot his troubles. All would have
gone well, perhaps, had he not been left alone That night in the
cabin, Jones and Gordon tramped over to the station together to get supplies.
They promised to be back before dark, and Fletcher had no premonition of impending
disaster. During the afternoon, he had hiked through the woods and later wrote
several letters. It was when the shadows became a bit flickery that Graham Fletcher
felt the chill of the bitter cold creep through him. Twilight fell. The
black shadow among the trees had arms, now arms that groped for him,
blind arms. They were blind. He fled to the safety of the cabin.
For a few minutes, the light gave him comfort. Then he saw
the shadows in the cabin, shadows that moved. He jerked open the cupboard
and took down a flat bottle. He tasted the liquid, drank. He
tried to read, but the shadows kept creeping up one side of the page.
The shadows sometimes they seemed to form claws, claws that reached for his
eyes. He drank again and again. Then he decided that his partners had
stayed over at the station, so he went to bed, leaving the light
burning on the table. He put the flashlight near him. His thoughts eased
back over other days. He kept his mind from the specter, and finally
fell asleep. He dreamed. This time a new trouble beset him. That
bottle whiskey. He had read of a number of deaths resulting from the drinking
of wood alcohol in liquor. Now he tossed feverishly, and after a while
went to sleep again. The tall, old fashioned clock, to which he
had paid scant attention, awakened him when it struck seven. He lay for
a moment, thinking seven the sun would be up. And blackness was like
a pall about him. It was thick, hideous. He could almost feel
it, hear it, taste it. Blackness. Could it be that he
had heard wrong? That it was still night? No where the lamp had
been left burning on the table, he could see no light. A cry
of agonized dismay burst from his lips. His senses reeled, but by a
powerful effort of his will, he was able to reach the flashlight full into
his eyes. He left it for a long minute. There was no answering
glow. God, he said, Ah, fool that you are, Graham
Fletcher. Had you but looked at the oil lamp, you would have realized
that it would not burn more than an hour? And did you not throw
away the useless battery in the flashlight? Yourself blind? You are not blind,
Graham Fletcher, but you do not know this. You are moaning softly
as you reach for the gun beside your bed. It is but the work
of a moment to put the end of the barrel in your mouth and push
the trigger with your toe. There destiny has raked the table clean once more.
Jones and Gordon were appalled when they saw the body of the suicide stretched
out on the floor. No possible motive made itself apparent to them. I
suggest that this was a story or coincidence. There is but one thing more.
It is for the friends to glance at the clock, note that it
is five hours fast, and buy some hocus pocus, decide at what hour
their friend took his own life. But they don't look, and therein is
the irony. The clock will tick merrily on until it has run down.
The End of Darkness by Charles Hill and Craig