I opened the door and all the lights were out. I stud in the kitchen as the light spilled from inside till it touched the edge of darkness. It doesn't matter that I knew what I was supposed to be seing, that I could recall from memory the way the gate could be locked, that if I closed my eyes I could picture the path carved in stones amid the still overgrown grass, forgotten to be trimmed way too many times. I stud under the lights and outside darkness called, endless, and I could as well be standing at the edge of the universe. Alone. I could as well have been the last breathing being, the last vestige of life.
I remember one quote, if I'm not mistaken by Thomas Harris, I must have read it in one of his forewords for a Hannibal anniversary edition, in which he said that when a scene was particularly challenging he used to take long walks at night. He would leave the lights on and when he got far away, he would sometimes look back and the house would look like a wrecked ship, adrift amid the meadows and dark sky. I can finally understand what he meant now. Like ruined beauty, there's imense allure in desolation.
I walked outside, barefooted, without bothering to close the door, and I kept walking, way past the gates, way beyond the limits of what I could name. As I walked further the open door was a lightened square beaconing me to safety, was the only point of light beside the stars. As I walked further away, it became smaller and smaller till I could barely recognize it for a single beacon of light, till I could breathe the silence in the warm air. Till I could, finally, become one with the night.