It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save on outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.
Yes, Stave Four of A Christmas Carol is shrouded in darkness. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is a figure of death and foreboding, traveling with its own black atmosphere. Scrooge bends his knee to this spirit, bowing to the power and mystery of the future.
With that kind of introduction, I have probably set any reader up for a pretty depressing post. This post is not going to be depressing. The only reason I chose the above passage was its emphasis on darkness.
This morning, we had a power outage at our house. I woke up to the sound of my son crying in his crib. "It's daaaaark," he kept saying. I tried to be sympathetic: "The electricity is off, buddy. Just close your eyes and go back to sleep." He didn't follow my instructions.
"It's daaaaark."
"I can't do anything about it, buddy. Go to sleep."
"It's daaaaaaark."
"I know, I know.
"Turn on the wights."
I sighed. "I can't."
He whined, a sound that reminded of his sleepless bottle nights.
I wanted to tell him to embrace the darkness, to get down on his knee to it, like Scrooge does. Then, I realized he was only three-years-old. He probably wouldn't understand death and the future and middle-aged angst. Instead, I settled for trying to be reassuring as the clock ticked down to the time I had to get up to get ready for work.
Saint Marty is tired. He's been up since 2:30 a.m. He wants somebody to turn off the wights.
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| It's daaaaaaark |
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