Freedom

  Doubt was nothing new to him, he had lived with it every day.  Felt it from the inside, outside, every side.  He felt it in every look, and in every word.  It was like a constant, weighty companion, dragging him down like an anchor.  To Truman, it often felt like it would cause him to drown and then one day, it did.  The doubt became so powerful, so constant, so overwhelming he finally gave in to the weight, letting it pull him down, down, down. Down to the deliciously depressing depths he never knew existed.  Deeper. Darker. And silent. That was what he noticed.  The cool, calm silence, all alone there in the darkness.  It had been a gradual thing but it dawned on Truman suddenly.  The inky black silence.  He drank it in, enjoying the calm, the peace, the utter lack of stimulus.  It was liberating really.  He had been fighting so long he hadn't realized how tired and weary he had grown.  But this, this was freedom! Truman had not given in so much as he had come to a place of mere acceptance, and that in itself was the turning point.  Letting himself soak in this void had allowed him to let go.  He let go of his own doubt, he let go of his own fear, he let go of the bitter loathing that had taken over everything.  The realization struck him as he noticed his own pulse pounding, feeling and hearing it course through every vein in his body. He was alive! And he liked it.   The darkness and silence were still out there, but no longer a part of him.  Truman felt light and music radiating from within, rippling outward through the depths, pulsing from his soul, and rippling through the emptiness and filling it with joy.  Sensation now returning, he felt himself hurtling forward, outward, upward, elevated by the freedom he never knew he was missing.  Up through the depths, breaking through the surface, Truman soared faster and higher out beyond the atmosphere,  still fueled by the doubts of others, but now mixed with his inner freedom, his heart burst into a galaxy of stars.  Stars in the darkness.