Candlelight in Darkness

Find me someone who revels in the changes of life and I’ll find you someone else who would rather sacrifice their own limb than face any kind of metamorphosis.

I’m that someone else. Change is frightening, which is a funny thing for me since all I ever had was the unknown. Nothing was ever settled, the future was always a mystery. But then I grew up, got myself together, and merged into the river of adulthood where there is routine and, within that routine, comfort and security. I’ve come to love it.

But life never lets us stay at ease for too long, does it? Even if it’s years down the road, something inevitably storms in to upend our precious little bubble that’s tucked away next to other little bubbles. And bubbles are just—so—easy—to—pop.

One day your life is as it should be and the next, it’s hard to tell which way is up or left or down or right. In a fast-paced world where decisions need to be made on the fly, what is someone like me to do? Someone who needs the time and the space and the peace to escape into their inner sanctum and contemplate far-reaching and life-changing decisions, free of all noises and voices? When the expanding universe of the mind seems incapable of holding the jagged, tumbling thoughts of a suffocating soul, where can we turn?

Some are blessed enough to have a listening ear in the form of a trusted friend or empathetic parent. But me? Growing up bouncing from home to home, never having any real connections? Who did I have? The guy at the hot dog stand I buy lunch from? The bird that starts chirping at ungodly hours only on the weekends? (Though I will admit, yelling at it does feel cathartic, so I guess that’s something.)

The answer is: No one.

But sometimes life grants us small reprieves, candlelight in the darkness. It’s often not at all what we wanted, but exactly what we needed. And it isn’t until much later that we realize it was actually a gift.

Mine manifested in the form of a small black book with seemingly endless blank pages. I couldn’t tell you where it came from, but what I can say is that it quite literally fell into my arms.

Well, onto my head.

Or rather, my upturned face.

It fell from the sky is what I’m trying to say.

What’s that? Am I sure it didn’t fall off a looming building nearby? Yes, I am. Why? Because I was on top of that building.

In the hustle and bustle of the rat race, our eyes are all too often fixed on what’s in front of us, putting one foot in front of another, just trying to make it through one day so we can survive the next. That’s why I was on the roof of the office building that night—the glimmering stars were on full display and the tug of the universe called me out of the inferno of my thoughts.

As I’d gazed up, admiring the beauty that continued on regardless of whatever earthbound troubles came with human existence, something plummeted straight out of the firmament. I was too stunned to move and got smacked in the face by an empty journal, of all things.

Now, this book… it came to be my friend. I have no other way to put it. It was my external mind. It was the void in which I could pen my screaming thoughts so they had a place to go, so they weren’t clinging to the walls of my psyche and depriving me of sleep. At first, though, I was terrified of tainting the pristine pages with the permanence of black ink and abased musings. For a few days it sat on my cramped little desk and it was always the last thing I looked at before going to sleep. But I never opened it.

Until one night when my roiling thoughts hit a fever pitch and I was staring at the darkened ceiling of my quarters, chest heaving with unmuffled sobs, tears trailing down the sides of my cheeks and absorbing into the pillow.

How could such a quiet room be so damned loud?

I scrambled out of bed, stumbled over to my desk, and flicked on the lamp. Under the warm glow, the strange black book had never looked so inviting, so full of promises of release if I would just trust in it and in myself and—

The next thing I knew, I was putting pen to paper and the messy scrawl of tangled thoughts flooded out like a dam that had burst open. I showed the journal no mercy and it took every fear and doubt and cry for help I threw at it, reassuring me in its own way that it could handle it, that I should keep going until I was spent.

By the time I was done, my wrist ached fiercely, my fingers had locked, and I was exhausted. Yet there was something else; the familiar weight of helplessness and loneliness was no longer burrowed within my body. For the first time in a while, a ghost of a smile touched my lips. The tears that followed tasted different from the bitter drops I had grown accustomed to; they were more like a cleansing spring rain.

I didn’t know what had just occurred, but the only time that notebook left my side from that day onward was when I showered. It stayed with me during my errands, during my meetings, during my commute, and especially on the nights when I went back to that rooftop. The levity I gained just by glancing at it was almost euphoric. In the ten days that passed since I’d acquired this odd, precious gift—and in scribbling on its pages—I was able to discern and pinpoint what exactly it was about my life-changing choice that was bothering me.

I was afraid of it because it meant leaving the security of a low-paying job for the possibility of a better venture. I didn’t like that. I wanted guarantees, I wanted my safety net. I was also terrified because this change meant that I had to pack up my life and move, and despite not having anyone close to me, I’d discovered that I did, in fact, enjoy the brief company of the people who resided in my city during our daily commutes. The familiarity of their faces helped mold part of my precious little bubble.

The last thing I was terrified of was my lack of funds. Is it ridiculous that I was so bent out of shape over something as normal as that, something that almost everyone would be concerned about? Maybe. The human mind is weird. It’s so powerful in many ways, but sometimes it acts like a child. How did I not realize these three things—I still can’t believe it’s only three, it felt like so much more—were what was giving me so much grief?

And that’s where it helps to have someone to talk to. Or in my case, a journal that fell into my life out of nowhere.

Which brings me to today, the eleventh day since that little black book appeared. I’d returned to the rooftop to stargaze again. It was a chilly autumn night but the sight above me was absolutely worth the discomfort. I was laying back on my blanket, delightedly tracing the path of as shooting star, when someone cleared their throat not five feet from me.

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

Shooting upright, I’d searched for the source of the disturbance and found a little girl sitting cross-legged to my right. She beamed at me, black hair tied up in two little buns, her eyes squinching into crescents.

My first thought was, Why is this kid up here by herself in the middle of the night?

What came out of my mouth was a stunned expletive. I'd quickly backtracked, then rubbed a hand over my face and sized her up. “Hey, kiddo. What, uh… what are you doing here?”

She’d shot me a mischievous grin and scooted closer. “Your notebook,” she said, nodding at the journal beside me.

“What about it?”

“Did it help?”

I’d stared at her, hard. “Beg your pardon?”

She gave me an exceedingly patient smile, as if I were the child and not her. “Did the notebook help you work out what was bothering you?”

Subconsciously, I reached for the journal. “How did you—”

“Yes or no?”

Oh, what the heck.

“Yes,” I said.

The girl smiled wider. She hopped up to her feet. I watched her warily as she trotted over and patted my cheeks. “Good.”

I snagged her by her wrists before she could pull away. “Explain yourself.”

Thunder descended on her face, so fast it startled me into releasing her. She took a step back, arms folded across her narrow chest. In a voice suddenly too deep for her age, she said, “You did not ask for an explanation for the notebook. Understand that not everything requires an answer so long as you are grateful for what the unknown has granted you.”

I was frozen in place, unable to comprehend what in the world was transpiring. Why were weird things happening to me?

The storm dissipated from her visage as she knelt beside me. Gently this time, she said, “You want things to be in your control, but you know that’s rarely possible. You need to trust that when you let go, life will find a way to either cushion your fall or lend you a helping hand up when you are ready.”

I gingerly picked up my journal and held it up for her to see. “And this is…?”

“A small gift. Something to help you when you can't help yourself.”

I gazed at her in wonder. “You know, I don’t understand anything that has happened or is happening.”

The girl laughed—head thrown back, whole body quaking with mirth. “That’s alright. Humans don’t know everything, and honestly, they don’t need to.”

She got up, dusted off her jeans, and flicked her fingers at the notebook. “Look inside the back pocket.”

Curious, I’d opened the journal and tugged open the sturdy pocket on the back cover. A holographic card was nestled within. I frowned. I knew for a fact that it had not been there before. I pulled it out and found that engraved onto it was a series of numbers.

“What is this?” I asked, looking back at the girl.

But she was gone. I leapt up and searched the entire rooftop, even checking over the sides to see if she might have fallen off, but it was as if she’d vanished into the night.

“Okay,” I said to the air. “Who drugged my food?”

I’d retuned home immediately, and now I sit at my table trying to figure out what this card is supposed to be. Nothing has come to me yet but, oddly, the numbers do seem slightly familiar.

And all at once, it hits me. My heart pounds in the confines of my chest, so hard I worry it might give out. I open my laptop, log into my bank account, and fall absolutely still.

Twenty thousand dollars had been deposited into it.

There is nothing about the payment that tells me who really sent it, just a donor called Life, Inc. that doesn’t even exist when I search online.

My eyes rake over the number in my account again.

How is this possible? Why is this happening? What even is happening?

I take a deep, deep breath and slowly release it.

It’s okay. I don’t need to know, no matter how badly I want to.

Not everything requires an answer so long as I am grateful for what the unknown has granted me.

And boy, am I grateful.