The Man Who Carries The Light
Every night, the man who carries the light walks slowly past my cell. The time surrounding his arrival is spent in absolute darkness. Without the man who carries the light, the days would bleed into one another, lacking the boundaries of time to constrain one from the next. But as he passes every night, I know another day has come and gone. Because of this, I find myself wanting to trust the man who carries the light. He is both my captor, and the only source of brightness in my day, at the same time.
Every night the man who carries the light walks the halls, carrying a single white candle in his hand. The soft orange flame casts just enough light to see the outline of his face as he floats by. It outlines the dark crevices of his eye sockets, reveals the bony, pointy structure of his jaw, and pours light into the hollowed out spaces where his cheeks should be. In the one hundred and sixty four nights that I have been here, I have memorized his face, his walk, his slow and shallow breathing, the way his scrawny fingers grasp the candle.
Every night the man who carries the light walks slowly past my cell and looks me dead in the eyes, as he decides if today will be the day I am freed. I can hear him stepping down the stairs on the one hundred and sixty fifth night. I stand up and use my hands to feel for the walls of my cell, brushing my calloused finger tips along the concrete, feeling my way, trying to get closer towards the sound of his footsteps approaching. I see the dark halls beyond my cell start to illuminate as the man who carries the light draws nearer to me now. He comes face to face with me, and without a single word, unlocks my cell door. The unfamiliar sound of his key turning in the lock rattles in my brain, sending the hairs on the back of my neck to stand straight up.
Tonight, the man who carries the light guides me out of my cell, out of the murky halls of where I have been kept, up the stairs and into a sunlight washed room. I blink hard to adjust to the light. It has been a long time since I have been in the sunlight. I let the sensation of warmth pool over me completely, feeling every ounce of light hit my skin.
I look around for the man who carries the light, but he is gone. No matter, there is light all around me now.