Does this darkness have a name? This absence of light that engulfs my very being and soul. The guilt that goads it on; that fuels the fiery flames of rage within my heart. The same flames that nearly razed my will to live when I saw Uncle Ben's bleeding body; his life leaking between my fingers. It was those same agile fingers that gripped the milk bottle thrown at me in the shop. I had held it as though it were of great importance. How ridiculous. I slam my head into the brick wall, relishing the feel of the warm blood seeping through the mask, stinging my eyes. I want it to burn into my retina. I want the crimson to wash over that memory of Uncle Ben; I want it all over and gone. All the blood does is burn; I still have my sight.
I welcome it though, as if it were a close friend. I find myself much too comfortable, familiar rather, with the slippery feel of running blood and the sticky chafe of the dried blackish substance. Gwen's father's death plays through my memory now and I find my fist slamming into the wall without accordance with my consciousness. The man died protecting me, what other choice did I have but to protect his most precious gift to the world? A sick feeling of cynicism rushes through me and I can't help but release the bitter laugh gurgling from somewhere dark inside of me.
Captain George was one of the few who had never thought of me as a vigilante, up until his death. The title, while not a self-proclamation, was one I had believed in myself. I laugh now as I consider my utterly asinine though process. Vigilante? Spiderman is my rage given the privilege to roam free. I am no different to the man with the star on his wrist. I merely find myself on the socially accepted view of the 'good side'.
If Uncle Ben had been killed by Policemen, defenders of the 'law', my actions from there on are not hazy. I find myself fully aware of how close to the border I am between 'good' and 'evil'. I understand the relativity of words that we use, of the thoughts that we think. I understand the dull glow hiding the intensity of feeling in the eyes of criminals; the feeling that what they're doing is right, that it's justifiable. This empathy does little else than poke at the black coals that feed my flames.
I'll hold it in though. I'll bottle the rage despite all my protests and I know it will not end well, because no amount of knowledge that has deemed me worthy of the title of genius that others give to me will be useful. This darkness is relative; it has no text book name. I can place it under the genus of emotions but even that in itself is debatable. This darkness, and I proclaim my perspective of its classification as I pull at the edges of the mask of the vigilante; the symbol of justice, is Spiderman.
