Bringer of Light

“Tell me the story again Mama.”

The woman smiles with a face who has seen the world burn and rise out of the ashes. “Again child?” Her voice soft, full of love and honey.

“Please?” A small boy whispers.

“As you wish.” She puts her cup of tea down onto a table, and snuggles next to the young boy. They sit in a nest of blankets and love. Holding each other like they are all that is left in the world. 

“Close your eyes. Imagine a world in which the streets are full, bustling with people, alive with conversations. As you walk down the main road turn left, past the familiar red phone booth, onto a smaller, more secluded street. And there it is, the cafe for gentle souls, lovingly nicknamed the Old Teacup. That's where it all began. The walls were lined with old books from lifetimes, long before yours. Remnants from a past long forgotten. I was a regular there, the man who ran the cafe knew my name and order. A single cup of milky tea.”

“But mama, tell me, tell me when you saw him.”

“In time child, in time. Now keep your eyes closed. Do you smell that? The coffee beans, and the distant promise of cake?”

“I do! I smell it!”

“Good.” She paused and drew in a long breath “I was doing my crossword, so absorbed in the grey sea of letters and numbers that I didn’t notice him, not at first. And then I heard him. A voice rich and deep, like a forbidden chocolate from a land far away. And I knew then, that I had to know this man.”

“Mama, what did he look like, what was he like, tell me again.”

“He was like a candle, his warm glow penetrating the gathering darkness that was soon to surround us. His freckles mapped out my favourite constellations, the ones I used to stay up watching all night. But what I was really drawn to, was his eyes. The look of inescapable kindness that they radiated, the kindness I would come to crave, and to eventually, to miss.

 It took me two weeks of him visiting the cafe for me to finally introduce myself. I stumbled on my words, and held out a hand for him to shake. He laughed and said “This isn’t even near my work, I only come here to see you.” And after that we were inseparable. His name, he told me, was Lucas. It means Bringer of Light, he said. I have never heard anything more true. We got married a year after meeting each other. The wedding consisted of a few friends and family, and everywhere I looked was light. We moved into the flat above the Old Teacup, and we were happy, in love. Caught up in a whirlwind of new romance. We had everything we could ever have wanted. But as the years went on, we found there was something missing.”

“ME! I was missing!”

“Yes, you. But no matter how hard we tried, you kept escaping us. The room we so lovingly decorated remained empty, until the hope of a child seemed like an unfulfillable promise.

We didn’t think much of the sickness at first. It was a distant problem that we assumed would never reach us. So we did nothing. When we should have been preparing, we were too caught up in dividing our country. Families couldn’t have a peaceful dinner without the topic of politics being brought up, so we stopped eating together. 

Then, the sickness hit us like a ton of bricks, and we no longer had the choice to sit together. 

Your father, he was a doctor, he helped the tsunami of infected patients, until one day, he got it himself. It started out mild, a few coughs here and there. But I saw it, the light he gave, got dimmer and dimmer, until, like a candle, it was snuffed.

When He was gone, I could not bear to open the curtains. I was too afraid to look the world in the eye. For what kind of world would it be without him? A grey destitute land, not worth living in. I stayed in that state of perpetual despair for weeks. I gathered everything that smelt like him, and held on with dear life, as if I could will him into existence again. But I couldn’t, so instead, I did nothing. Then one day, I looked down at my stomach, really looked at it. And I saw something I hadn’t seen since he died.”

“What? What did you see?” Excited, his small hands reached up to grasp her face. 

“A faint glow, distant but there. So I climbed out of my fortress of bedsheets and self pity, and looked in the mirror. And there it was, a roundness to my belly from which the light was immenating. ”

“ME! That was me! Wasn’t it!”

“Yes child. I knew then, that I would see the light and colours of this world again. So I named you, after him, Lucas, you are my little bringer of light. A boy made of sunlight, just like his father.”

She smiled down at the boy nestled beside her, his hair a mop of chocolate curls, and eyes like stars, shining. Like he’d seen this world before, in his past life as a shooting star, or a fiery comet. A single tear rolled down his face “I wish I could have met him.”

“Oh my dear. You will meet once again, in your next life as a supernova, he will be the space that surrounds you. And in the life after that when you become the ocean, he will become a sailor, just to be close to you.”

***

“Papa, tell me the story.” A young girl, with comets for eyes, looks up at the once young boy, much older now. With a face full of smile lines, and eyes full of light.

“Again child?” Lucas smiles.

The small girl looked up at her father, eyes alight with a hope that runs in the family, and she beams, “Again.”

“As you wish.” Lucas smiled and took a deep breath. “The world wasn’t always like this…”

Fin.