The Light

All over our suburb, lights have suddenly gone out, and panic has seized our hearts. Grasping my lover’s hand in the pitch black night, I struggle as he pulls me up. My legs are flimsy noodles, absolutely useless, for try as I might, I cannot make them work. How can I expect my boyfriend to carry or even drag me along these nightmare streets? But he is my salvation and I cannot let go of his hand. Suddenly he gasps. I look instinctively upward. A bright light, white beyond all comprehension, has appeared above our town. It pulses and the pulsation begins to penetrate my being as I feel the strength returning to my limbs. I sense, but cannot yet see, that others, like my boyfriend and me, are being drawn to that spot where the light has centered its fantastical white glow. Mobile again, I walk with quickening steps beside my lover, mesmerized as we both follow that magnetic throbbing glow. There has been an immediate restoration of light to the houses which lost all light at the moment we had plunged into utter darkness. Moreover, the lights of those houses whose occupants had been sleeping are also coming on, and soon there are hundreds and hundreds of lights being turned on in all the neighborhoods as if their occupants are somehow being summoned telepathically to rise from their beds, leave their homes and come meld with those of us already on the streets. What can it be? Who can it be? Is it alien life force? Is it God? These thoughts are mine, but I actually can hear them in the minds of those who now comprise the steady stream of people who, with great anticipation, draw nearer and nearer the pulsing light which seems to be coming from a huge field on the outskirts of town. Its brilliance is beyond that of anything I’ve ever seen before - an illumination that all the lights of the town combined can not equal. As my boyfriend and I press on eagerly with the throng, I feel a warmth. Indescribable, it permeates not only the cool night air, but also my very heart and soul. I look at the kind and handsome face of my dear companion. Then I look at the throng of wonderful people, realizing they are but a fragment of the sum of humanity, and love’s warmth floods the core of me. I do not know what is coming, but if this is a dream, I wish never to awake. For "Finish the Dream" Contest by Matt Caliri