A Kind of Light

For fl, anton, and Roxana:

Alexander, in 'The Land of Darkness', with his cook, Andreas. Lost and found.

the hole, the well, the cavern: the symbol of refuge, a place that no-one else can see or find, where I cannot be seen, can be nothing. Spengler was wrong here. The inverted triangle, the symbol of the primordial waters-still waters run deep- of the heart, of all that is most inward. Amongst the ripples of time and stillness, there is a sudden flaring up, totally unscripted: at the moment of deepest perception a realisation that the night is also a sun. A place of silent reflection, gathering...where one collects one's thoughts, where black suns live....


The scene: A man has been thrown down an unused well in the middle of nowhere, a vast and inhospitable desert. The relentless, monotonous sun has dried everything out-both above ground and below it, reducing life to a carcass, an empty shell...under its glaring light the world is but a vast system of mirrors: the nothingness within a reflection of that without, the man's abandonment a shadow of the fate of the well itself...



"...[a]t one point something happened that I never could have imagined. The light of the sun shot down from the opening of the well like some kind of revelation. In that instant, I could see everything around me. The well was filled with brilliant light. A flood of light. The brightness was almost stifling...The darkness and cold were swept away in a moment, and warm, gentle sunlight enveloped my naked body. Even the pain I was feeling seemed blessed by the light of the sun...I could see the stone walls that encircled me. As long as I was able to remain in the light , I was able to forget about my fear and pain and despair. I sat in the dazzling light in blank amazement.

Then the light disappeared as suddenly as it had come. Deep darkness enveloped everything once again. The whole interval had been extremely short..the flood of sunlight had gone before I could begin to comprehend its meaning.

After the light faded, I found myself in an even deeper darkness than before. I was all but unable to move...A very long time went by, it seems. At some point I drifted into sleep. By the time I sensed the presence of something and awoke, the light was already there...Without thinking I spread open both my hands and received the sun in my palms. It was far stronger than it had been the first time. And it lasted far longer. ..In the light, tears poured out of me. I felt as if all the fluids in my body might turn into tears and come streaming from my eyes, that my body itself might melt away. If it could have happened in the bliss of this marvellous light, even death would have been no threat. .. I experienced a wonderful sense of oneness, an overwhelming sense of unity. Yes, that was it: the true meaning of life resided in that light..."

----Murakami.

A vision of the world without us, not merely a place that excludes us, but a place emptied of us. The light, now a faded yellow against sepia-toned walls, seeming to be enacting the last stage of its transience , its own stark narrative coming to a close.
---Mark Strand on Hopper's Sun in an Empty Room.