Me, the Darkness, and the Light

It was always just the ten of us for as long as I could remember. Just us, the darkness, and the light. It never dampened our spirits, the darkness surrounding us. We’d dance, and sing, and talk, and laugh to fill the dark and empty void as we walked, my father leading us all with the glowing orb of light mounted on the carved staff of white oak.

But this year was the first year I had to do it alone. It was just me, the darkness, the light, and the memories. Everyone was gone, it was just a simple mistake. The light had dimmed just enough to hardly see anything and only lasted a second due to my carelessness, but in that second, they were taken by whatever force that waited at the shadow’s edge. From that point on, I never let the staff go again.

The darkness that was constantly around and obscured everything seemed more daunting and heavy than ever as I was forced to walk alone. It was harder to move forward and continue walking without my siblings laughing and joking with me. The darkness seemed bigger and scarier without my father and uncle watching over us at night. Everything seemed colder and more barren without my grandmother cooking the herbs we find in the circle of light we traveled in.

There wasn't much I could salvage after everyone disappeared. Most of the stuff laid on the outskirts of the light, and I couldn’t get it because the light wouldn’t budge from the line we had always traveled along. So, I was forced to leave the bags thrown open like that behind and carry the few remaining things I had left in the bags near me along with the now heavy staff of light my father had always carried.

My supplies were dwindling now, after what I had assumed were months after traveling alone. There was no way to count the days now, without someone there to keep the days from blurring together into a mesh of solitude and depression. I couldn’t leave the path to gather the herbs and plants I saw growing out of the dark water beside the path, the light wouldn’t allow it. I had to keep a steady hand on the staff of light, or else the light could go out in a blink of an eye. 

I don’t know how long it had been before the light on my staff had started to dim. It was faint, at first, but the consequences were large. Things started to prowl at the edge of the light now with their horrible snarling and growling, making it near impossible to sleep. The water had started to lap at the thin shore of the path like a monster waiting for the right moment to leap. No one had ever mentioned this before, the dimming of the light, and I didn’t know what was wrong with the light. It wasn’t like when I had let the light fade out, it was a constant dimming that affected the light, one that I couldn’t control no matter how tightly I clung to the staff.

The already small circle of light surrounding me began to shrink as the days passed. I was already on the brink of despair and hopelessness when this began. It worsened my thoughts and I could hardly travel as much as I used to. I spent days just staying in one spot, with no will to move forward. I couldn’t understand why we had to keep going down this never ending path surrounded by all sides with gloomy darkness and perfectly still water. As far as I could tell, the path would never end. Even grandma and grandpa said they only knew the life of walking in darkness with the light.

When my circle of light had become the size of my body and the light hardly gave off any light, I spotted a shiny glass ball in the water, about the same size as the light. Even with the dim light bouncing off it, the inside of the ball was dark and murky like the darkness surrounding it. As I stopped to stare at the glass ball, a disturbance to the otherwise smooth lake beside me, a memory came to the forefront of my mind.

“You there, grab that.” My grandma pointed a wrinkly old finger at me and at a glass ball in the water, a couple paces away from the pathway.

I pulled up my pants and waded into the knee high water to grab the glass ball. My siblings and I stared at the glass ball as Grandma took the ball from me and began drying it off with the edges of her fraying robes. Father and Uncle stopped and knelt beside Grandma and waited. Mother helped Grandpa sit down and rest.

“If you ever see one of these, you better pick it up.” Grandma finished drying the glass ball and let us study it. “The light feeds off it.”

“How? The light doesn’t have a mouth like us.” My eldest sister looked at Grandma.

“No, it doesn’t. But it’s a sight to behold.” Grandma smiled as she took the staff from Father.

I stared at the glass ball as it shined in the dim light of the light. Then I scrambled to get it. This proved to be a problem. The moment I moved to even just let go of the staff, the light flickered as if it was going to go out. I couldn’t leave the path since the light wouldn’t follow. Finally, I found a way to grab the orb and began drying it with my frayed robe.

I stared down at the glass ball in my lap, remembering the first time I had seen such a thing. It seemed so long ago now. Everything seemed so long ago. The warmth of the light, the comfort of my family, the stable feeling of belonging. It was just so long ago...

The light dimmed slightly and I blinked away the tears that fell. Once I had wiped away the tears that fell onto the glass ball, I grabbed the staff and lowered the light towards the ball. In a spectacle of glowing butterflies, the dark, dim orb broke into a shower of glowing butterflies that flew into the light. When the last glowing butterfly flew into the light, the light itself beamed brighter and gave off a stronger wave of warmth.

Another strange feeling came over me, the feeling of comfort. Even though I was alone, I felt comforted by the warmth that the light gave off. It was like an embrace from my family. It felt like I wasn’t completely alone, I had the light. I had the light, the last remaining family member I had.

While the light wasn’t the same brightness before it had started to dim, it had a new found brightness that widened my view of the pathway. The warmth and comfort the light gave out was enough to keep me going. I got back onto my feet and continued onwards, smiling with relief that this wasn’t the end.