Night Light

• Joshua Nies, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2018

The continuous echoing chirps of the deafening crickets resonate in the distance as the dark tranquil moonlight shimmers through the motionless cracks between the two draped curtains. The glaring light casts a spotlight across the room as if it were an empty theatre waiting for the next performance to be performed.

Hear sits a boy, alone, out of the light. A subtle sob escapes his jittery, unsettled lips.

He sits there, legs crossed warping old sheets that dangle from the side of his bed as if it was just tossed on top of the naked mattress and left to spring new life consisting of mould. The air is still, the night is calm, but that's not all that is dull. In this room, one important and significant event is occurring, not in the room itself, but his room, in his mind.

It's a race, a million thoughts a second!

A quick swoosh and its gone, but it doesn't go for long, in a split second, its already on its next lap, racing back and forth... "what if?" That's all he can think now besides from the lurking question of "why me?"

A gentle breeze brushes the curtains through what is now a clear divide, casting shadows and reflections across the room as the luminescence changes from calm to a violent lash to the young man's understanding.

He ponders for a minute then with an instant snap of thoughts, he makes his decision and comes to the realisation of what most would consider as 'the end'.

"So this is what life is?"

"It shall certainly not be," a man with a strong but musty voices demands.

The young man shifts his almost lifeless body towards the voice, opposite the curtains. There seems to be a figure of an old, fragile man with a coat stretched from his head to his feet covering his face giving a certain disheartening feeling. His shirt stained brown as if it had been chucked in the dirt and not washed; his black long pants that had been ripped from his knee down.

The strange looking figure that resembled what could be mistaken as a Jedi from the popular franchise 'Star Wars', stood there holding a bizarre type of cane. A cane with writings along the side mirrored 'ancient scrolls', and at the top of the cane gripped a shiny piece of metal that appeared somewhat transparent as if it were glass.

The figure approached the young man which had streams of tears seeping downwards from the corner of his eyes cleansing the bedsheet in which he had been sitting on.

"Take me there," the boy sobbed.

With a swish of the wind and a tugged the boy's arm, he was immediately washed away from his bed and into the light where he would never come to the feeling of being abandoned again. There he's lays, to come to rest once again.

And so, the night fell silent as it once did.