The whole point to darkness is to be able to hide. Without darkness, you can't hide the blemishes. You can't escape prying eyes. You can't play Ghost in the Graveyard.

Darkness gets a bad reputation. Sometimes bad things happen in the dark but, that doesn't mean everything is bad. There are good things that happen in the dark too.

The light has a way of being considered good; but what about the light that stings your eyes or burns your skin? People forget that. I'm not saying light is bad. I mean it does have a lot of merits. But people don't want to admit that the darkness has some too.

Even the Bible starts out in complete darkness. Was that wrong or evil? Why should we be so afraid of it then? Just because we can't see in it, doesn't mean we can't find our way. I am not saying it was easy for me. It was not. I stumbled through it until I found my footing. But once I did, I found all the benefits of it. I found things that I didn't realize were there, once my eyes adjusted to it. Does that make me evil then? I think it makes me balanced.

After all, aren't we looking for the balance; the way to find peace and strength? It didn't happen for a long time. It certainly looks bad to those who don't understand me. But I don't care. For the first time in my life, I feel free. I can breathe and I know who I am.

I didn't.

I was all alone in the light. I thought I knew who I was. I thought I knew everything. Then the day came that darkness began to challenge all of it. The questions would come. And maybe they were a bit deceptive. But they did lead me to the truth eventually.

I remember being in a deep thought and I heard this knocking at the door. They must have been knocking for quite a while.  I remember hearing it like I was in a dream at first. I was cooking some soup on the stove and burning it. I moved the pan and turned off the stove when I realized what I was doing. It smelled terrible.

The other problem when someone knocks on my door is that I have to walk down the steps to get to there. I live on the second floor and it's a pain. I don't always bother but since I was 'out of it', I mindlessly made the trip downstairs.

Then, when I saw two people standing there with books in their hands, I almost turned around. But one of them saw me. So reluctantly; I opened the door.

"Good evening miss," the tall man said. He was wearing a dress shirt and black slacks that looked like they were second hand. His shoes were scuffed up and worn out. They reminded me of my dad's when I was growing up. Instantly I decided I would hear him out. The woman with him wore a long jean skirt and a pretty but plain blouse. They seemed to be very kind and not what I was expecting.

"I am so sorry to bother you tonight but, if you have a few moments, I think it may be worth sparing them for us."

They were both smiling so genuinely that it took me quite by surprise. I found myself inviting them inside. I never did that. What was wrong with me? Somehow, even though they were so strange, I trusted them.

I did a half trip on one of the steps.

"Are you alright dear?" the kind lady asked.

"Yes I'm okay. Just missed the step I guess."

"We all miss them sometimes," she replied, "at my age; Lord knows I've missed quite a few."

I was uncomfortable once I realized two strangers were coming into my house. I knew they were not judging me but I was worried they would for some reason. I showed them to my rather small living room and asked them to sit down.

The tall man began to speak and pulled out a book. 'Here it comes', I thought. I was all too familiar with this routine. But something caught me off guard this time. Something I just couldn't quite figure out.

"My grandfather worked for the railroad for 50 years," the tall man said to me. "He was a hard working, man's man. He worked from sun up to sun down, six days a week until he died. He never took a vacation as long as I knew him. He was a 'good' man. He provided for his family. Conversely, my father was a rebellious drunkard and beat me until my bruises bled. He rarely worked and when he did, he was soon let go. My mother was all I had growing up, after he left us. He was a 'bad' man."

The tall man looked at his wife who was smiling quietly at him. Then he looked back at me. "My teenage years came and went. I was rebellious and gave my mother plenty of grief. I hated authority, and I hated my dad. Most of all, I hated me. I had to look in the mirror every day and see my father, staring back. That mirror. I broke a lot of them in my time."

I could see just on the edge of his eyes, a glint was forming. It was the start of tears.

"I got in a lot of fights. I drank a lot of my problems into bigger ones. And one day I ended up in the county jail. It was a small little cell and I was certainly on my way to an even smaller one someday. But then they told me I had a visitor. I didn't know who it could be. So I went to the window and saw a clean cut old man sitting at the table. The closer I got to him, the more I recognized him. It was my father."

I noticed the tall man's wife getting choked up and tears in her eyes.

"I wanted to run away. But there was nowhere to go. So I sat down. I looked this man in the eyes; the one who used to drink and beat me and yell and cuss and abuse my mother. I was angry. I wanted to break down that window and choke him."

"He called me Georgie. And it made me mad. He said it a few times. He told me that he wasn't the same man I knew as a kid. That he had changed. He was 'sorry' things turned out the way they did and if he could take it all back, he would. He explained that his father was never home and never showed him love. That grandpa was a hard man and took out his anger on him. He said that everyone thought grandpa was so good but he had a dark side that only a few people talked about."

"He said he had to go away to get better and not hurt mom and me anymore. He was upset that I was having so much trouble. And he wanted to find a way to work through all of it. But I was hard now too. I told him 'no'. I told him how he ruined my life and it was not something I could forgive. And I told him I never wanted to see him again."

"So what happened?" I asked him.

"Two bullets," the tall man said. "The first one missed but the second one went right through his frontal lobe"

"What? You killed him?" I said in disbelief.

"It wasn't by my hand but he was so grief stricken by my reaction that he committed suicide," he said quietly. "For the first time, I really saw myself and what I had become."

We sat there for a moment, the three of us.

"I was scared of everything all at once. I thought I knew good and bad. I thought I had the right to be angry. I thought I could handle life on my own. But everything was out of my control now. I needed a power greater than myself. And that's when I met Betty. She has been my salt and light these past 43 years."

The tall man reached over and put his hand in hers and they smiled at each other. I was tearing up and smiling at them.

Before the night was over, I had agreed to visit their church and helped them down my treacherous steps. If only everyone who knocked on your door was this nice and real, maybe I would actually like church. But a promise is a promise. It won't kill me to go once. It might even be entertaining.

As we stood on the stoop before they left, the tall man noticed the other door behind him.

"Where does that door go?" he asked me.

"Oh just to the basement. I don't go down there," I confessed. "It's all dark. Too scary"

He stepped outside with his wife and looked up at me. "Yes. The dark can be scary. But sometimes the best things are found in places like that. Places you haven't worked up the courage to go yet. Maybe you will someday. Have a good night Runa."

I turned to go back inside, but I got a strange feeling. So I turned back around to look out my window. And I swear; they were already gone. Just like that they disappeared. I had to shake myself. I opened the door and looked out. I hesitated but then I ran out and looked around the corner of the building. There was no one.

The night air was very still. Nothing moved. Theworld was frozen in that moment and so was I. Slowly; I walked back inside. AsI looked at the other door inside at my stoop, I shuddered. I closed my outsidedoor and locked it tight. I took the steps quickly and closed the door at thetop of the steps.