Unknown Location “The Rising Star”

“I see them all over Wellington Street. Every night there seems to be more of them, and I can't help but feel that it is all my fault. People are inviting something into their homes without realizing it, and in so doing they are spreading it in all directions. People pass by these homes and they see the lights in the windows. Lights where no lights should be. And when they see them, they are drawn to them, and wonder about them. That is more than enough to bring them to you, and it seems that the more you try to deny their existence, the worse the problem becomes. As the weeks have passed, I have tried taking walks, wishing to be rid of my room and the light that shines within. The fact that nothing tries to stop me only makes it worse, and I I know that it doesn't need me to stay, and that by traveling I am only helping, as my mind is polluted. Even in writing this I am committing to you the burden of the lights, but you must understand that to not talk of it is to make it so much worse. All it wants is to listen, but the secrets it wants are things that we were never meant to share, personal senses of grief that hold us hostage for years to come. Only once the light comes, those things don't hurt anymore, as want becomes a need, and what was becomes what isn't/wasn't. And I am sure for some people there is nothing wrong with that, but I know that there is something terribly wrong with this process. I see it in the way it tries to cover itself up, while also acting as a memetic anchor that spreads simply by line of sight and the mere mentioning of related terms. I remembering hearing about the red and the glow, and where the red is like a force, and the glow is like a sickness, the purple light is something altogether different. It combines the two into a singular form, spreading like the glow but nameless like the red light. It looks and feels like it is something simple and clear, that there may be a sort of compassion in what it is doing, even if what it is doing is causing people to forget those things that hurt them. But that is the thing that is wrong with it. There is nothing wrong with being in pain, but it cannot see the difference between a needed pain and a wanted pain, between something that could be forgotten with little consequence and those things that linger in our hearts and shape us into who we were/are. I have so many blank spots in my memories now, and there is no way for me to be sure of the sort of damage that is being done to me. Some pieces are gaping wounds that are obvious and impossible to miss. Gaps in my memory that are big enough to tell me something is gone, but won't tell me what is gone. How many of the small things has it caused me to forget? How many small pieces of pain has it taken from me, and how will I ever really know? By the time it is done will I even be a person anymore, or will I be some empty shell where something used to be, or something isn't and wasn't and never could be. Because that is the thing isn't it? What isn't is gone and once it is gone all connection to other parts goes away. I know that I take medication, but I cannot find out what it is for, even though I have called my doctor and asked. I have been told by people that they are sorry for things, but all I can do is look at them in horror, and apologize for the horrible things I am going to bring upon them and their families. Or maybe I won't actually be hurting them. Maybe talking about it is pointless. I have tried desperately to get this all right, to give you as many clues as I can in the hopes that you will notice something I don't, that you will know how to stop the spread. Every night there are more lights in the windows, and when the red is gone and the glow...the glow isn't real! That fucking purple light refuses to stop hurting me. I don't want to think about it anymore dammit! I don't want to think about the lights, and to sit and wonder what the fuck I am telling it every night when it lingers in my room, whispering something sweet and loving, something that makes me open up. I have tried moving away. Don't you think that is the first thing I tried? But it follows me. It follows me whether I am at a hotel or in the woods or simply on the side of the fucking road in the middle of nowhere. It follows and it listens and I know something big is missing because there are pieces of information that I cannot miss. There are pictures in my phone that should have two people in it, family photos in old albums that are missing people or things that should be there, but I cannot figure out who they were or why they mattered. I know it isn't just one, and every night I fear that I will tell it more and more, and as I do it will take more and more because no one exists that doesn't hurt us in some way, and the damn thing hungers and seeks out wrongs, and how am I supposed to know if they deserved it? How am I supposed to know that I didn't make them go away. What will happen when it realizes that what hurts me most is me?”

I received this a few weeks ago, and since then the amount of strange lights in the windows of Wellington Street has diminished. Whether or not that is a good or a bad thing I cannot say for sure. There are houses where houses shouldn't be.

It stands to reason that there could be less lights because there are less houses.

That there are less people.

Often times we like to see things of horror as being random acts of violence, as strange and separated occurrences that suggest to us that we should be thankful for the normalcy we experience. But really that is all just an illusion. No matter how separated an event seems from us, the truth is that everything is connected.

All the little joys and miseries of life, experienced by all different people throughout time, are all connected to one another.

It is the nature of time for it to be this way.

So when I hear about strange lights in the windows and odd sights in the sky, or dreams with a growing violence, and the disruptions of memory, the question isn't why do these things happen.

What is important is how are these things connected.

My coworker, Niomi, missed her third day of work in a row.

I am going to reach out to her personally.

I need to make sure she is okay…

And I hope you are doing okay.

I love you. Talk to you soon.