The path

The path to the shrine of the Prophet Isaiah led to nowhere for her. On the grassy verge of the path was the imprint of a dewy grass, creating an earthy smell. The ground had sucked in all the water from the now flat, smooth ground and breathed out heavily. The oxygen in the air caught on the soil, leaves, and stones, releasing a revived scent not remembered by the brain but by the body.

Since she was 8, she and her mother had come here every week on Saturday. They would light the oil lamp, which was for the small flame of prayer that would always be lit for the lost soul of her father in the war. They would hardly talk; there was no need. The silence around them was full of emotion like a cup that was full; it could not overflow.

Her mother was sick today, and she had told her daughter to go alone today.

"Go by yourself," her mother had said in a sore voice; "You know where it is."

Her mother was telling the truth—just a kilometer away; you would have to walk straight and flat, no danger from wolves or anything else; it was a familiar route, yet she felt it to be a duty to her soul.

As she was walking, the sound of bleating came from a distance. But it wasn't the ewes calling for their lambs; it sounded like a person who had just lost someone who had died in some way. It was not a cry or scream; it was more like a broken breath that didn't finish. When she heard this animal noise, she stopped walking; she could feel her stomach tightening, just like it did when she had been a child and sensed that something was wrong without yet knowing how to put it into words.

The air smelled like metal, not yet the smell of blood.

It smelled like blood will smell—eventually.

"These animals are not responsible for their death," she thought, but did she mean these animals or the people who kill them with hard hearts, who nearly cannot hear their cries?

Then she started to remember; not that it was her fault.

The horse. Her best friend. The deep brown horse with a shiny coat that would glimmer in the sun. The way the horse would snort when it grew impatient. The way it would turn its head to her as if it could understand what was going on inside of her. It was her friend, and they killed it, too.

"They killed it for the war," they told her.

Just as they killed her father.

None of them returned; only letters full of nicely expressed words; all of them were filled with grief and sadness, and the silence just seeped into the house like the dampness from the walls.

Her hands began to shake; not because of fear, but because of a deep, unhealable, unflinching sense of injustice—the injustice that you learn to carry.

The road began to narrow, as though it was testing her.

"Where is this world headed to?" she thought.

A world that does not love animals. A world that does not respect animals' lives that are not speaking the same language as we do. How can the world learn to love humans if it cannot learn to love animals?

But still, within her, a small flame was burning stubbornly, just like the oil lamp's flame—small and fragile, but still burning. For her father, for her horse, and for everything that has been taken from her without reason.

Reaching the shrine of the Prophet Isaiah was the last stop; once again lit the oil lamp and watched as it flickered as if it was hesitating, then finally burned as steadily as before.

She closed her eyes and did not ask for anything.

Only that she would not be hardened.

Only that she would not be accustomed to passing by his or her pain, whether they be humans or animals.

When she opened her eyes and saw the shining light of the oil lamp,

As long as there is light, she thought, there is still hope; even if you must be the one that continues to light it.