KMC Forums - The Rhythm in the Dark

Disclaimer: I own Danny, and umm... I own... my ideas? I hope....

I wrote this short story one night when I was in a poetic mood.

Hope you like it!

The Rhythm in the Dark

Danny stood on his back deck, bouncing a tennis ball.

It was a hot, mid-summer�s night, air thick with moisture. Crickets were chirping all around, in tune with the bouncing of the ball.

The two noises floated to Danny�s ear like a sweet scent on a soft wind, rhythmically producing their respective noises.

Bounce. Chirp. Bounce. Chirp.

The ball was a melody in itself. Down to the light brown wood of the deck, up to the peachy color of Danny�s skin.

Down. Up. Down. Up.

Danny was almost hypnotized by this nature-created melody. The ease of the summer night, mixed with the chirping of the crickets, with the bouncing of the ball. It enthralled him.

Until, of course, an Evil force disrupted the rhythm. The ball bounced just a little off-target, missed Danny�s outstretched hand, and flew up, up, up, until it hit section of an overhanging roof of the house, and then down, down, down, past the backyard deck and down onto the grass below.

The crickets almost stopped chirping. The sweet melody of the night had been broken.

A force that could commit such a crime had to be evil, right? Who in their right mind would even think of stopping such captivating music?

Without a single thought, Danny walked down the steps of the deck to retrieve his ball.

But he stopped when he reached the bottom.

He saw the blackness of under the deck when he turned, saw the nothingness that instilled such a fear in the pit of his heart that he froze. He couldn�t move.

Oh, it was so scary. Under the deck there was black, dark, nothing. Who wouldn�t be afraid of such a thing? In fact, the blackness under the deck was probably the force that stopped the melody of the summer night. It was Evil enough, right?

From the bottom of the steps, Danny stared at the bright tennis ball, beyond the dark stretch of nothingness that was the area below the deck, sitting ever-so-innocently on the lawn.

To get his ball, Danny would have to walk right through the Darkness. To get the rhythm back, Danny would have to get his ball.

He had to have it back. It was wrong to keep the ever-so-simple pleasure of a mid-summer night�s melody away from a small, helpless child.

He took a deep, steadying breath, and prepared for the journey through the black void.

He took a step. Then a breath. Then a step. Then a breath.

Danny realized it was another rhythm, creeping up on him, trying to get him to say in the nothingness.

But he wouldn�t. No force in the world would get him to stay under the deck, not even another melody.

Step. Breath.

The evil rhythm was calling.

Step. Breath.

It was beckoning for him to join.

Step. Breath.

As Danny neared the Light, the melody began to scream for him to stop.

And he almost did.

Almost.

The small child pushed onward, through the Black, trying to reach his goal, which was the ever-so-innocent tennis ball, lying on the other side of the Darkness.

The Rhythm didn�t get to him, so he was able to brake the barrier of the nothingness. He went and retrieved his ball, and turned to go back.

He took another deep, steadying breath, and stepped back into the cold black.

As he walked onward, he absorbed the bad rhythm again.

Step. Breath.

Except this time a new note was added to the melody.

After every breath, little Danny would grip the ball with his small fingers.

Step. Breath. Grip.

The Rhythm was shrieking in Danny�s ear, in Danny�s mind, in Danny�s soul.

The bad rhythm wanted him to stop. The bad rhythm wanted him to stop and join it in the dark nothingness.

Maybe he could wait just one minute� No! The evil melody wouldn�t get to him. It wouldn�t.

Danny shut his eyes and made a run for the Light beyond the Darkness, but he tripped and landed, sprawled out in the dirt. Without even opening his eyes, he crawled madly away from the Dark and into the Light. When he was sure he had gotten away from that binding darkness, he opened his eyes.

He was sitting on his butt on his lawn, several yards away from the nothingness under the deck. He found his hands empty, tennis ball nowhere in sight, until�

From where he sat, he could see the bright, ever-so-innocent ball ever-so-innocently roll out from the dark and come to a stop, merely inches away from the black void.

�No! I won�t go!� screamed Danny at the ball. He knew the ball was Evil, too, for it only wanted him to go back to the Dark.

The small child cried and ran, as fast as he could, into the warmth and light of his home, while the ever-so-innocent tennis ball sat, unmoving, just inches from the cold, black, nothingness that was under the deck.

Danny never went back to retrieve his tennis ball, and he certainly never went back into the darkness under the deck.

Now, you decide: Was the ball truly ever-so-innocent? Was the Dark under the deck simply an area where light could not reach?

Or was the Dark really calling out? Were the Dark and the little tennis ball truly Evil, trying to grab hold of a helpless child�s soul?

Perhaps, even, the mid-summer�s night melody was the force to be blamed? For it was the driving source that made Danny have to have his little innocent tennis ball back, right? Without it, Danny would not have ventured into the Dark�