
There’s something about watching a slow-moving train wreck. You want to look away, want the horrors to be a mirage behind which is nothing. But twice in her life, those sirens howled of warning, screaming and begging to be stopped, but no one listened.
To survive, sometimes we need to look away from the jagged scrap metal, away from the twisted husks, the cries for help—so many of them. So she looked away, at least for a little while. And she walked away too, up and into the darkness of the hills, away from the city, away from the palpable grief, away from the people.
The quiet of the mountains soothed, and she gazed down at the sea of lights below her: a metropolis the size of which dwarfed more states than it did not. Each of those lights, the sign of people going about their routines. People who woke up to take their kids to school. People who laughed with friends over drinks. People who snuggled into bed at night with their dogs and their books. Who scrolled social media and giggled at sea shanty and cat videos. People who were living their lives.
She realized then, through a fog of her own despair for the future, that in that sea of light were worriers and dreamers and moms and daughters, security guards and poets and baristas and programmers. And so many of them, were looking out upon the world with the same grief.
She was not alone.
So she descended the hill and submerged herself in that sea again with a new candle from that sea of lights, reminding her that she was amongst the lights, and they were all shining together.
Sea of Lights
She realized then, through a fog of her own despair for the future, that in that sea of light were worriers and dreamers and moms and daughters, security guards and poets and baristas and programmers.