Total Darkness

Prompt: What place do you think of when you think of total darkness? Write about that place.

I have only ever experienced total darkness once. It's one of the scariest things even, I think, but at the same time oddly fascinating. When people think of total darkness, they think of something like a moonless night or even a dark room, but even when you have no moon to shine light down on you during a cloudy night, there's still light. Last week when the power went out on a moonless night, I went out swimming with my sister, and I'm telling you, it was dark, but it wasn't like I couldn't see my hands and feet or the edges of the pool.

When I was in seventh grade, we went on a field trip for "Peak" as it was called. Personally, I think it's just the "bigger kid" version of Adventures Plus, which is more or less before and after-school babysitting. However, on this particular day we went to visit Crystal Caves. If you haven't guessed what it is that reminds me of total darkness already... I guess you know now.

So far underground that the temperature drops below freezing is where I'm talking about. No light from the sun ever finds its way down there. Even air from above never seems to find its way that far down.

Now you may think: They would never let seventh graders into a cave like that without lights, surely? You're right; we definitely needed lights to get down that far. It was a mere demonstration, but it stuck with me for quite some time afterwards. I wasn't frightened, more of intrigued. It was fascinating in a strange sort of way to be completely without sight no matter how much I squinted or how long my eyes were given to adjust.

I remember the guide, a tall woman with dark brown hair and a friendly smile. I don't really remember what she said, but the basic idea was that she was going to turn off all the lights to demonstrate just how "dark" total darkness really was. When those lights turned off... it was total darkness.

I raised my hand up in front of my face; I could feel its heat just inches in front of me. But in the five minutes I waited... I couldn't even see the outside. It was the strangest thing. If I had dared to move forward, I wouldn't have been able to see any of the other dozen or so kids in front of my face until I ran straight into them.

And then a flashlight came on. It was blinding... I mean seriously blinding. It was painful to look at for almost a minute because it was just so brilliant. Imagine that: the light of a dull yellow flashlight seeming too bright to even glance at. Quite frankly, it amazed me just because of its complete novelty.

But I've gone on enough. So I suppose, to make a long story short, caves remind me of total darkness, but I think this illustrates so much better just why they do. Total darkness is hundreds of feet underground without even a drop of sunlight, where the air is cold enough that your breath forms puffs of frozen water vapor. That's what total darkness is to me.