Memories of Light












Darkness. I woke to a darkness, an inky haze draped over the slow world around me. She hid in crevices, ducking between alleyways like children, clinging to the corners of houses and doors. The darkness was a shade that was neither blinding, nor endless-- the color of sleep, the gentle, final layer of fantasy. There were no shapes, only the film, and in the far horizon, a bit of white over the sea. Retreating slowly, pulled back, the last whisper of night fell away, her tendrils lost in the new cycle.

The first whistle of morning flowed through the leafy trees, blowing, a warm cry to the day. The sweet smell encompassed the water that lingered, clear and refreshing in its drops. It was where you would lick your lips, a coolness so tangible against the growing warmth, as if you could drink away and sooth your thirst. It was the crystalline spheres that slide onto lush vegetation, the gratifying drops to parched animals. And the word, water, meant something entirely new. Dew, did not fit. Not enough. The liquid glossed fingers as they dragged through the short, green blades that clothed the brittle, dry ground. I was shaken awake by the soft, yet startling chill, and my feet scraped the cold, unable to let sleep call me back.

I dragged back to the home that housed my family for the temporary time while here. Tugging my body toward the sort of tower that overlooked the entire terrain, I eventually made it at a snail’s pace. The niche was streaked with the same morning water that coated the grass. Numbly, I had fiddled with the paint on the ledge, scraping it off, pondering what I was to do that day. Nothing remarkable. I turned inwardly into myself.



When am I going to finally do my work?


Probably like me to do it wrong…


What am I? What is this worth?


The warm scent of earth and shrubbery met my nose, a sort of metallic, fresh smell, mingling with the tangy salt of the sea in the distance. Memories nudged at the corner of my mind, of someone not long ago.



He would’ve liked it here.


A vivid recollection of the errors I may have made ran through my mind, each growing, until I made a list of things I’d done wrong, so terribly mistaken in my entire life. With one negative thought grew another, where I began to gnaw myself to the bone, where every hurt and pain arose, and every other issue outside of me flapped in. It was this drowning, this insecurity in my bones I held-- the black smear on my canvas, the crack in my glass. Memories clouded my thoughts, despite being far past, swiftly combining with my self doubt. It is man’s greatest challenge to forget, and to love. Rather, we do not let go.

I cannot let myself go.


One small drop, and a wave develops. It is the sort of pain that eats away, hard to describe but known. Oh, very known. My mind sat in this pondering, as I stubbornly remained in my thoughts and scraped away the paint, leaving a bare, wooden edge.


It was there. It was there, that it breathed, and yet didn’t move, created glorious sound but hardly sang.

It began.

It hummed, it wept, and it bursted in beauty. Each climb up was fluid, each ray burning with determination. In its tears were gold, strong and full of life. The right description evades our human minds. Blossomed. Opened. A brilliant color, one so extraordinary it blinded.

The orb grew. In each burning grasp, the darkness was gone as if never existed. On the horizon, the sea pushed, crashing waves in rhythm of the fiery ball. In each sound, each crash of the thing known as water, the clean hue exploded back. A reflection grew- a startling, exceptional rendering of light. It moved over the line that had separated it from night, rose into the clear sky that was scraped clean of shadows. It was in the howling of the wind as it grew that the foaming ocean rocked with fervor, and every outline became otherworldly.

Every home beneath became like the other, yet different. Each strand of light illuminated every crook, giving individual beauty but enough to be shared amongst all.

Everything was starting.

I was not alone. I was but a grain of sand, but I was worth much more if I was given the chance to see that light. I was human. I was alive. That is enough, enough to realize how much I had.

Each beat of the view grew-- singing together with the call of the wind as it streaked past my face. In the reflection of my dark eyes, only the dawn could be seen. It was the moment where your soul is silent, where you are one. Where your skin, where your thoughts, do not matter. It was the time that when you breathe, you breathe as so not to disturb the light around you...

In each rise, I was not me. I was everything, and nothing at all. I was minute, infinitesimal in the workings of the world, yet significant, part of the glorious miracle in front of me.

In the final push towards the sky, the orb exploded in its last stand, and the ocean gave one last flying leap, hauling towards the shore that was wiped clean. It was in those final seconds, that all hope was bestowed. Hope, it was the color of that which rose before me-- something considered so impossible, that when it occurred, it coated each heart of every human in its light. If such beauty existed, then the world was worth living for- if every morning, the struggle for simply light occurred and won, who was I to question it? Who was I to question what I was, if quite already the world was going to know, and continue without me? If the new day would begin despite myself?

It was then I understood. It was then that I knew I belonged here, to live in the miracle that came over the horizon everyday, for the orb still rose, and it was about time I rose with it.

The clear scent of the ocean came again, but it was different this time, the strong acrid salt burned away until it smelled cleaner . . . The realization came faintly, secondary . . . . My mind was slower. Much slower, in cadence to the silent expression.

I brushed the ledge, traces of water moistening my hands. I had hands. I breathed deeply, inhaling until my lungs refused to suck in more. I could breathe, I could smell. In the distance, the call of seagulls echoed as if only a memory, and the whir of screen doors and humans stirred. I could hear. And in front of me, I could see. If there was one thing in this world for certain, it was me, and that light bouncing in my eyes.

It was sunrise.