The Night I Couldn't Put Out the Light

Nera · Oct 9, 2025

The last traces of the storm still flickered at the edge of the window.
Yu said nothing,
waiting for my words.
In that silence,
an old wind in the depths of my chest began, slowly, to move.
— So I decided to speak.
About my own nights.

When I first went independent,
making the night look beautiful
was everything my work meant.
I arranged the scenes that appeared before people's eyes,
tuned the light of the stormspires,
placed lamps so the city could sleep in peace.
That was my reason for living. My reason for being.

But somewhere along the way,
the more I arranged, the more my own interior grew wild.
The more I quieted someone else's night,
the more my own night clouded.
Every evening I repaired some light somewhere,
while the sound of my own breathing
grew more and more distant.

One night, working at the top of a stormspire,
I happened to look down.
There below me was the row of walkway lamps I had designed,
arranged in clean, even lines.
The light was smooth.
Anyone would have called it perfect.
But beneath it,
there were no shadows.

In that moment,
I no longer knew what the light was for.
The words "for someone" were carried off by the wind
and disappeared somewhere far away.
Deep in my chest,
an emptiness remained that I couldn't do anything about.

Even so, I couldn't put out the light.
I was afraid.
I felt that if I turned it off,
nothing would truly remain.
Not my work. Not my name.
Not even the outline of who I was.

So even now,
I keep placing these small lights.
They don't have to be perfect.
They don't have to be steady.
Until someone finds them,
I will keep tending the light in this wind.

Outside the window, the stormspire hums faintly.
— That sound hasn't changed since that night.
It keeps illuminating my silence,
still.