Explore "Black Light" by Talbot Mundy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Joe awoke in the night with a feeling of crisis impending. He felt like a man in a death cell awaiting the summons. The feeling that he was destined never again to see that room was so strong that he began to stare about him, peering through the shadows cast by the dim night-light. But even so, it was a long time before he noticed the old Yogi-astrologer, Ram-Chittra Gunga. The ancient of days was so motionless that he was hardly separable from the shadows, and even though Joe moved to attract his attention he made no response; he was like the shadow of an image seen in an ink-dark pool. The silence was almost terrifying.
"I'm awake," Joe said at last. "I'd like to talk to you." But his own voice startled him so that he almost wished he had not spoken. He experienced the weird sensation of having shattered, by speaking, an actual structure of silence that the Yogi had built up. The sensation was heightened by the old man's movement; he appeared to look around him with a kind of patient disapproval at the shattered remnants.