Dante fragment

Dante – episodes/memories
   The night was drawing in quickly; the sky was already engulfed and the sun swiftly swallowed by the receding darkness. The streets were streaked with wings of shadows; each elongated form coated the everyday sights and objects with a film of blackness, transforming them into misshapen creatures that seemed to skulk around the avenues and alleyways like patrolling beasts. Despite the sinister outlook from my window, the apartment within was a comfortable contrast. By that I mean reasonably safe and secure enough for me to hold up inside without too much concern.
My apartment was a fair-sized room with neatly set window to my right from the door, but sadly it only showed the dismal view outside.  The room also contained a desk nearby which I habitually used for my writing, some drawers for clothing and other items I carried, and a small bedside table where a little gas lamp sat steadily burning away. The feeble flame was sending it's own soft shadows across the room onto the wall opposite and on to the panelled door which I always kept heavily locked. I knew you could never be too careful, especially in a new neighbourhood.
As I lay still, my back pressed against the hard headboard of the bed, I tried to relax my mind. By nature I never really felt fully at ease but I attempted to at least try to calm myself into a state where I might be able to get some sleep. My days were long and tedious so surely some rest would be greatly needed even though it always seemed to elude me. I breathed softly as I watched the shadowy patterns on the walls flicker slightly every time the flame wavered. The patterns seemed to warp into moving beings, dancing slowly and moulding into each other. They reminded me of when I was young and used to create shadows with my hands by candlelight in the cellar. I used to name them and pretend they were real. It shocked me that I remember that, I almost smiled but it was not a fond smile for it was laced with a bitter taste. A sickening realisation, like a forgotten door had just been opened. A door which was left closed for a reason.
I felt bemused as I watched the dark little creatures, but acrimony now clouded my thoughts. Then slowly a softness crept over my head, like my skin was being shrouded in cotton. I began to experience a strange feeling weave over me, as if I had been struck down and then awoken dazed. I knew these feelings well, they were far too familiar. My thoughts of disruption seemed to slip away, my body felt number by the second. The gas lamp seemed distant from me as I drifted in deeper.

Separate from my thoughts, my mind hovered away from consciousness. I felt my heart sink within me, reaching and searching the innermost depths. I desperately grappled for something to cling to, something I could recognise but I could not connect with anything around me. It was as though I was in the deepest ravels of a dream and could not break free.
The memories seemed to roll back and forth before my eyes like ocean waves; untameable and overpowering. Yet they were indistinct; merged colours, morphed shapes and faces like a painting melted by rain. I was fearful of the visions but wanted to grasp them, as if I could save parts of myself by salvaging the reminiscences of times long gone. No matter how horrific or painful living through them had been. I was compelled to watch the scenes of endless loneliness pass over me, feeling each and every stab of emptiness infiltrate my pores like icy water. Even in my well-trained adult mind, I shuddered to recall the inescapable despair of that innocent child I had once been. The years of solitude when I lived in the Valley; feeling cursed by the dissemination of depression that consumed my father, the isolation and disdain from my peers, and that ever overwhelming feeling of being incomplete - constantly living in fear of an unexpected grisly fate. Not a world for a child. Not a place to be as only a young boy, trying so hard to make a life in place that seemed to be saturated in some form of evil; populated by sin and governed by an eyeless justice.