"They flee their own wretched land so their hunger may be pacified in foreign lands, their tears wiped away in strange lands, the wounds of their despair bandaged in faraway lands, their blistered prayers muttered in the darkness of queer lands".
'Upstairs.' They all went up together, into the darkness of the unlit landing, and Dad said goodnight and limped into his room.
He led his beloved, tormented country from the howling darkness of apartheid to the promised land of democracy with shrewdness, courage, and visionary determination.
The image of darkness over the land would have been understood by ancient readers as a cosmic sign, a typical element in the description of the death of kings and other major figures by writers such as Philo, Dio Cassius, Virgil, Plutarch and Josephus.
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At 05:00 on 21 September 1809, Nereide entered the bay of Saint-Paul under the cover of darkness and successfully landed the British force, without any sign they had been sighted from the shore, at the Pointe des Galets.
This is the new Earth, the new heavenly body born out of the darkness that lands in a white room as an unseen hand actuates function after function – a rose blooming under a clock, a step meter spiraling into view, Mickey Mouse tapping his toe jauntily.
"There was no turning back even had I wished to do so, for the land was now shut out by the darkness of night".
