Writer Daniel Magariel reads a passage from his remarkable second novel, Walk the Darkness Down, and delves into how he creates his characters, his research methods, and the sustained meditation of the writing process. Daniel's passage, excerpted from Walk the Darkness Down. At the age of eighteen, when he first started scalloping full-time, Les suffered from sleep paralysis. The condition is not uncommon among fishermen. It lasted only a few years, fading away as the work–rest cycle on the trawler normalized. Back then he went down easy, but dreams would float up fast, mischievous and terrifying dreams from which he would attempt to will himself awake so urgently that his mind would come alert though his body still slept. At first, confused by this disharmony, he hallucinated a presence sitting on his chest, pinning him down as his mind screamed and flailed and wept until he bolted upright in the berth. But as the condition advanced, the dreams evolved. The presence disappeared and the time it took Les to wake lengthened. He could be trapped inside himself for what seemed like hours. In that paralyzed state, he would feel himself falling down, down, down into a depthless sea. Body still, mind wild, he watched the light near the surface of the water wither as he dropped deeper into a blackness so vast that it used the world for a reservoir. That is what it feels like when Les loses consciousness over the hollows of the sea. Despite his immersion suit, the cold stunned his limbs once he dove into the water. He swam with desperation, with purpose, swam for survival, for warmth, restricted and protected by the buoyant neoprene. He swam toward the blinking light on John Wayne’s suit, away from the boat, powering through the swell, churning onward. He imagined his body like a machine, the kind that recycled its byproduct as fuel. When his limbs grew tired, he swam for rest. When his breath was short, he swam for air. When dread crippled his mind, he swam for courage, for faith. He swam and swam until he ground to a halt, lungs burning, and stopped to take his bearings. The light on John Wayne’s suit had vanished. The trawler was nowhere to be seen. He rested for a moment before sinking into a fear that sputtered like his breath. Panic surged and he swam again, this time with wasteful, failing strokes. He changed directions impulsively, his entire body filled with unexpected movement. Sucking air, he vomited from the salt water and exertion. He was forced again to rest, to calm down, held up in the swell by the suit’s flotation. Les did not lose time, but the hours that passed took on the effect of sleep. There was blackness above, blackness beyond, the sea a glistening obsidian. Rain poured down relentlessly. Cold set in, creeping up from the toes, slowed the flow of blood. Stilting his thoughts. Mind lurching. Lunging? Lurching. He swam for clarity. Only a few strokes and stopped. Spasms in his feet, his legs. His mind. Shivering. He couldn’t feel his fingers. Fangers, as his father said the word. Old man dead in all this wudder for water. Locals used yuh for yes. Marlene spent a year trying to get their daughter to say it right. Daughter. Her name. Angie. Angie. Angie.
