THE RENAISSANCE OF LIGHT

 Kalyx had only lived in darkness. She had been told stories as a child about light, but she could never truly imagine an illuminated world because living in darkness dulled the development of imagination. Like so many her age, she scoffed at the childhood stories and simply did her best to make her way in the darkness with only her go-light snapped in place on her head to guide her. She never complained.

           Complaining always led to trouble ether rom the official Keepers who used fear and even violence to squelch complainers into silence. Trouble could also come from one’s own family who viewed complaining as a sin against the Order. Families shunned complainers if they wouldn’t stop complaining, and had even been known to surrender complainers to the Keepers.

           Kalyx’s family was indebted to the Order because her family was in the business of making go-lights. The Order was their employer. So, Kalyx kept her mouth shut at home, at school, and at her after school job in the family factory. Yet, the dreams wouldn’t stop. They had started on the shortest day of winter when the deep dark lightened to a dusky darkness for a little while before the deep dark slammed down again.

In the first dream, the night sky was filled with twinkling lights which she knew from the old stories were called stars. The dreams continued. The second dream included a round yellow orb which the old stories called the moon. She did not tell anyone about these dreams. They both puzzled and delighted her, but also made her nervous because they were so unlike her waking world.

The third dream frightened her. She found herself standing in a radiant field of colorful flowers that cast full light like a billion go-lights all around. Was it coming from the flowers? She did not know. The absence of darkness was so unexpected, so alien that she awoke screaming. Her mother rushed to her sleep nook.

“Bad dreams?” asked Mother

Kalyx nodded vigorously.       

Mother stroked her forehead and hummed her quietly back to dreamless sleep.

Later that day at school, the lessons began about how to handle “bad dreams” that struck many young people as their bodies transformed so they would be capable of reproduction, if they were chosen for reproductive duty rather than some other adult role in society like maintenance, education, law, medical, entertainment, or even research. The teacher explained that scary dreams were part of growing up. That very day they were taught techniques to wake themselves up and erase those dream memories. Kalyx put on her best listening face.

However, Kalyx didn’t want to erase the dream memories. She was curious and wanted to understand what she was being shown. So, when she dreamed again of being in a radiant field of flowers, she didn’t scream, and more importantly, she didn’t wake herself up. She let the dream show her more. A path appeared before her and her curiosity overcame her fear. She walked upon the path which wound through the field of flowers until it disappeared into a dark forest. Kalyx stopped and did not enter the dark forest.  She woke herself up and lay luxuriating in the dream memory of the shining light abounding in the field of flowers.

“Kalyx, are you up? School today,” shouted Mother up the stairs.

           Kalyx jerked out of her reverie, pulled on her clothes and boots, snapped her go-light on her head, and descended jauntily down the stairs.

           “Here I am, Mother.”

           “And there is your breakfast. Eat and go to school. You must not be late,” Mother commanded.

           “Kalyx obeyed and ate. She hurried out the door. It was never a good thing to be late anywhere, but especially to school. Late comers who missed lessons were not allowed to make them up, but still expected to know the content of those lessons.

           She slid into her seat just before the tardy signal buzzed, dialed her go-light to the reading setting, and brought up the day’s reading assignment on her desk’s screen and started reading. The teacher walked the rows taking roll and checking that students were indeed reading the day’s assignment.

           Kalyx looked like she was properly engaged with the assignment and she was with the left side of her brain. However, the dreams had awakened her imaginative, intuitive right side of her brain, so that her mind was now capable of doing two separate types of thinking at once. Before now, she hadn’t even known that was possible. The lesson was linear and language based, so her left brain was dutifully imprinting that into itself. She would be able to recall it later as needed. The right brain was busy running visual memories of her revelatory imaginative light dreams. It was odd having both going at once, but also satisfyingly stimulating, so Kalyx relaxed and enjoyed the sensations inwardly without giving of hint outwardly of what she was experiencing.

           “Switch off,” commanded the teacher ending the lesson. All did.

           “Food fuel break,” came the announcement from the Order’s attendant who had been observing the class.

           The rest of the day proceeded in the habitual manner of all other school days.

           Back at home and supper eaten, Kalyx was finally safely lying in her bed. That night she dreamed once again. This time the dream began in the dark world with her wearing her go-light. Then, the dream shifted. She could see a sliver of light shining underneath a cabinet. She made her way to the cabinet. Shining her go-light on the cabinet, she saw an inscription on the front of the cabinet that read “Light exists. Open me if you wish to learn more.”

           Without hesitation, Kalyx opened the cabinet which was all lit up inside without go-lights and revealing an array of books with the word Light in their titles, such as Where You Can Find Light, The History of Light, The Secrets of Light, and many more. There were 13 of these titles. There was also a sign above the books that said: “WARNING! These books are for the Brave who yearn for the Light. There were once many more such books. These you see before you were placed here before the Great Darkness to be kept safe. All others like them were burned after the Order banished Light from our world. Signed: The Elders”

           Kalyx was stunned. She whispered aloud,” This is a dream, but is Light real somewhere?”

           A voice whispered back, “Yes.”

           Kalyx gasped and asked, “When I wake up, will I be able to find that somewhere?”

           “Yes, but you will need to use your newly awakened imagination to do so.”

           “May I read some here, now in this dream?”

           “Oh, yes,” answered the Whisper and continued, “as much as you like. Time here moves very differently from time in your waking world. Trust. You’ve come so far already.”

           Kalyx thought and said, Yes, I have. Thank you.” She felt a warmth swelling in her heart and spreading throughout her body.

           The Whisper urged, “Keep on. Read and know.”

           She chose The History of Light and started reading. When she finished that one, she went on to read two more: The Secrets of Light and Where You Can Find Light. She was totally unaware of time passing.

As she read the last word in the third book, she awoke from the dream. Her mind was churning with knowledge, her intuition was already suggesting her next steps, and her imagination was sending her pictures of a world that held both the Light and the Dark, an expanded world where Light and Dark were both revered and filled with purpose, the one not considered better than the other, both having external and internal aspects. It was a balanced world where sunlight and starlight nourished the lives and spirits of all entities.

Kalyx knew the journey to manifest into reality for all what she was seeing and understanding would be long and arduous, and she hoped not too lonely. She knew deep within her being that it was her purpose to begin the journey and that she would be guided all along the way until one day the Light that had been revealed to her in dreams would be reality once again, even better than before. The world of the future would be balanced between the Dark and the Light. She smiled as she felt courage welling within her heart for what lay ahead.

           In the future, it came to pass that Kalyx’s journey came to be called “The Renaissance of Light: Balance Restored.”