Eat the Dark

” They eat the dark, those that stop to breathe“   

                                               Something Wicked This Way Comes      

                                                                                                            Ray Bradbury

I love the imagery of this line. It took a couple of reads for me to figure out what the author was trying to convey, but once I understood, it became a sort of mantra of mine that I frequently quote to myself. 

The author was using the musings of an older father figure morning the loss of his youth to explain the concept of what it means to really “live”. The father sat at the bar drinking his ” one and only drink” and thinking about his son Will and Will’s best friend Jim. They were of the age when you didn’t walk anywhere, you ran. You ran simply for the sake of running.

He then states ” they eat the dark, those who stop to breathe.” In my opinion he was saying if you stop running, even to take a breath, you get nothing in return for it, you “eat the dark. “

I don’t think he meant that you never take time to stop and admire the beauty of the world around you. But rather that if you have something before you, don’t half-ass it (pardon my word usage), don’t skip or stroll, but go to it like you were Hermes and you had wings upon your feet. Don’t settle for stopping and gulping huge lung fulls of night air, eating the dark, but push yourself to greater heights.

The older man sitts their and mourns, longing for days when he used to run like Will and Jim. He wants nothing more than to burst out of that bar and join their wild pursuit. He wants to make the pack, like some lone wolf pineing for the other wolves attention, and admiration. He wants to see the wild places again, hear their secrets.  He wants mothers to cover the eyes of their children as they look upon him, because they’re afraid. Afraid their children will see the life pouring from his veins, and want to run themselves. (Mothers don’t want their babies to leave to soon, it’s always been like that, and always will be.)

I think their is something like this in all of us, that desire to run. To be known by those that run beside us, and for us to know them. To search out those wild places and leave our mark, sometimes for better and other times the worse.

Their’s apart of us that wants to be seen as dangerous, and adventurous.  The question I have is what stops us from running. Why do we give up that childish nature of thinking that something new and exciting is just around the corner, and if we don’t run it will be gone before we get there. Intead we take on a leisurly pace, if we go at all, and could care less if we miss an opportunity or not.

Will’s father goes on to say that it’s not him that needs the “drink” but something deep inside of him. The part of him that longs to run again. Why do we push down that impulse to be bold and brave again? Why do we settle for “eating the dark”? Where along the way do we lose that which makes us feel alive?

I say its time we reclaim the wild places of our heart, and take that passion to all areas of our life. Lets not drown it down with drink, or excuses, or promises of taking up the chase tomorrow. Lets run for the simple act of running, and the joy it adds in and of itself. It’s time to quit our feast of nothing. It’s time to run!

With lungs on fire, and eyes burning let us run.