29th June 2001
Clean Getaways

Veni, Sancte Spiritus, reple tuorum corda fidelium, et tui amoris in eis ignem accende.
Emitte Spiritum tuum, et crea buntur.
Et renovabis faciem terrae.

Swords ringing out in the dark, everywhere, the clash of steel on steel resounds. Everywhere, the scent of fear tinged with anticipation, the enthusiastic, boyish sounds of rallying cries, everywhere, a flurry of unseen motion. You grit your teeth and face the darkness secure in the knowledge that you are one of many championing a cause dear to yourselves.

Now and then, a muffled cry and a soft thud sounds, as someone falls to the earth. The ranks begin to dwindle.

Eventually, you realise you stand alone, in a sea of empty bodies. You call to your comrades, but stark silence answers you. Somewhere in the shadows, somewhere nearby, somewhere... by you, you sense - you fear - that the darkness will engulf you eternally. Slowly, fear begins to seep in, and hope drains away; slowly, you begin to doubt yourself, to doubt all that you have ever fought for. You flail out wildly in all directions, striking only empty air on all sides, till you feel fatigued, battle-scarred, exhausted... and alone. Your mind wanders, and you start toying with the idea of laying down your sword, of resigning yourself to the same eventuality that your once-comrades met a lifetime ago... to, perhaps forgoing your creed.

Dawn seems an eternity away...

And then, in the darkness, a glint of light. You squint hard and raise your sword in readiness. Through the blackness, you make out a fellow warrior striding towards you, fighting the same battle as yourself, standing for the same convictions, striving towards the same end.

And as you stand by her side, you feel somehow renewed, rejuvenated, and cleansed. Your hope restored, your crumbling courage returns, and your breath catches as you realise your wait was not, after all, in vain. And suddenly the darkness doesn't look quite as dark after all...

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Seated on a hard plastic bench on one of the generic London Underground trains today, as per normal, waiting out the 1 hour trainride into Barnet Hospital, I read a book. Nothing unusual there, except this morning the familiar Mosby's illustrated textbook of Paediatrics was replaced by a small, nondescript brown book, with a wealth of memories, mysteries and knowledge contained between it's battered covers.

And suddenly the darkness doesn't look quite as dark, after all.