La noche oscura del alma

by J.C. White

THE NIGHT did not begin so much as it refused to end.

I was awake on the porch with the house behind me finally quiet; mi casa sosegada, the old kind of quiet that settles only after every other body has surrendered. The boards held the day’s heat. Cicadas stitched their bright, monotonous seams through the dark. Somewhere down the hill a creek spoke in a voice too low to be urgent, too steady to comfort. The clock in the kitchen ticked too loudly, then seemed to tire of its own insistence and soften. Time loosened its grip. Minutes wandered off. Hours folded themselves into small quarters.

I had come out with nothing to do. No light. No accusation. No prayer. No plan. Just the waiting that arrives when sleep refuses you and the mind grows wary of its own noise. A oscuras, y segura, I stayed where I was, letting the night reduce things to what could be trusted. The grain of the wood beneath my palm. The faint smell of soap on my hands.

I leaned back and watched the stars dim and return, as if the sky were breathing. A train horn sounded once, far off, then never again. It felt like the night had decided that was enough.

Time behaved strangely. Whole hours slid by in a single thought, then a single minute stretched until it felt architectural, with beams and weight and longevity. Tomorrow shrank to a rumor. All that remained was the narrow bridge of now, and even that grew translucent. At some point I realized the dark had begun to work on me. Not to frighten, there was no drama in it, but to narrow my attention until the smallest things mattered.

I tried to pray and failed. Words rose and fell apart. So, I stopped reaching upward and let the dark do its work. I rested my forehead on my hands and felt the faintest breeze move, cedar-scented from the new steps, carrying nothing of consequence. The grit of pollen on my fingertips. The way the air cooled in careful increments. Without light, the porch reorganized itself. Corners disappeared. Objects lost their urgency. Choice loosened its grip. The night did not demand a decision; it offered passage. A oscuras, y segura, I thought, without knowing why. Safe enough, in the dark, because nothing asked me to choose.

There was no revelation. No voice. No sudden understanding. But something subtle shifted. The night, which had felt endless, softened its hold. Not into dawn; dawn was still far off, but into companionship. The darkness no longer opposed me. It kept me.

When the night is long, choices soften. They lose their edges. You don’t need to decide who you are tomorrow or what the morning will demand. You only need to stay. Darkness teaches that. It gives permission to remain unfinished.

Sin otra luz, y guía, sino la que en el corazón ardía. That was the thing I hadn’t expected, the small, stubborn warmth that persisted without permission. Not hope, exactly. Not comfort. Just a steady ember that made movement possible even when direction was unclear.

I tried to count the hours and failed. Time slid past in a single sentence. I remembered a staircase from childhood, how it creaked differently at night, how I learned to place my weight where the sound wouldn’t betray me. Por la secreta escala, I moved now in memory, disguised, not from anyone else but from myself. The heart carried its own small light; la que en el corazón ardía, and it was enough.

There was a moment, late, when the night shifted. Not toward dawn. Toward something quieter. The creek seemed closer. The stars steadied. The body forgot its complaints. I leaned my head back and felt the air move, a gentle fan of heaven. Nothing resolved. Nothing needed to.

I stayed there, suspended, my senses dulled in the gentlest way, until the clock resumed its ticking and the idea of morning returned, tentative and distant. When I finally turned away, I did not carry answers with me. Only the sense that something unnecessary had been set down.

By the time the horizon thinned, I understood what the night had offered. Not answers. Not relief. A joining. The self I’d brought into the dark and the self the dark allowed me to be met somewhere no one else could see. Oh noche que guiaste. The longest night did not end; it loosened me. And that, it turned out, was enough to carry me into the light.

Quedéme, y olvidéme.
I remained. I forgot myself.