Black Light, White Dark

Black Light, White Dark is a collection of 18 short stories. The 18 tales are divided into two main sections, 9 romantic comedies within the realm of Black Light, and 9 dark comedies within White Dark. They are all written in Chaos Riddle Prose and take place in the City of Angels - Los Angeles.The two sections are further divided between female and male. The 9 romantic comedies (Black Light) have 5 female stories (the narrator is a female), 4 male (the narrator, obviously, is a male). The 9 dark comedies (White Dark) have 4 female and 5 male stories. The lead characters in Black Light, both female and male, however different they are from each other, share a strength of character defined by unconventional innocence. Thus the "black light." The "light" refers to innocence, and the "black" points to an individual who, despite their innocence/Light, are deemed as outcasts. Also, black, depending on who you ask, is the creative color behind all other colors and so represents the creative force behind everything. At the same time black, as most people see it, represents death, the after-life, the place we all go when we die. In both cases black represents the spiritual, non-materialistic "force" (God, The Tao, Nirvana, Heaven) behind the materialist world. All nine characters have a certain purity and awareness about them because they are more in touch with that "black light."The tone of the tales in White Dark are much darker, more satirical, less forgiving of the characters. All 9 lead characters/narrators in White Dark are not lawbreakers, not criminals, they in fact mold themselves into whichever role society asks them to play. There lies the "white" in them just as the color white is commonly associated with Purity, Innocence, Good, Truth, and Honesty. These characters at first appear to the world around them to be "Good Guys" and "Good Girls." The "dark," the hatred for others and themselves is not easily seen. It comes out through normalcy and conventionality, through their "whiteness" through the very things that is commonly accepted as being the "Right" way to be. Thus, White Dark.