this dichotomy seemed to create a pocket of madness at his center , churning and gurgling as though harking back to the very uncertainty of primordial life where each moment was frantic and fragmentary , and calmness was , as yet , an alien entity overwhelmed by the demented normalcy of tumultthis black sludge bubbling at his core was where all darkness took refuge from the unrelenting light , was where it reacted with every compound and isotope of shadow and formed petty conspiracies which should only reach the surface when the dusk fell over the landscape .