Where We Go

"Where do we go when the lights turn off?"

The boy was small, and innocence was etched into his smooth face with those wide, bright eyes and that easy smile. Though now, his mouth was hanging open slightly; the question was an honest one.

The man he was speaking to smiled, an old, tired smile, and fell slow to one knee.

"On," he said simply.

"On where?"

The boy would not be detterred.

A faraway look entered the man's pale blue eyes, and for a moment, a flash of fear flitted across his wrinkled face. But he fixed his smile, gripped the boys shoulders, and stared deep into his eyes.

"On to a place where the sun shines everbright upon our shoulders. To a place with great, sweeping mountains and angry oceans. Waterfalls and soaring castles made of glass."

"That's not an answer, popop!"

"It is a fool who says he knows all. A wise man who knows he knows nothing. See, I don't know where we go. I don't know if you'll go to the same place I go, or if there is a place at all. You'll find some men who fear it, that darkness. Just remember something, if it ever frightens you too terribly."

The boy giggled as he fidgeted, bending his knees and swinging his arms back and forth.

"I don't know if I can," he said, laughing.

The old man tousled his hair and dug deep in his pockets, pulling out a matchbook. He peeled a matchstick from the book and held it aloft.

"Look, look close now. Tell me, what do you see?"

"A match," the boy's attention was fading; his laughter banishing his curiosity.

"Close your eyes. Go on, now. No peeking."

The boy pressed his little dimpled palms against his eyes, sticking his tongue out as he fidgeted.

The old man scraped the match against the book. There was a spark, then a flame. He could feel the heat sliding toward his veined hands.

"Look," he said.

The boy's eyes flickered open, and he stared at the little flame that fizzled on the end of the matchstick.

"Light," he said. "The shadows are frightening for one reason and one reason only." He pursed his lips, cocked his head. "I seem to have forgotten the reason. Do you have it?"

The boy started laughing again, even as his grandfather fished in his ear for a tiny, folded piece of paper. He made a show of unravelling the square of paper, amid racous laughter, then cleared his throat.

"Aha," he said. "We don't know what the shadows hold. But if you cast a little light into the darkness, it flees. It will always flee. Don't wonder where we go when the lights fade. Just make sure that the lights don't fade."

The boy's eyes had gone even wider, if that was possible. He had some inkling that he had just received some great knowledge, yet still knew that he did not understand it. The old man rose to his feet and lit another match, holding it to the cigar he had left on the table beside him.

"You be good, now," he said, smiling around the big cigar. But it was a sad smile, a smile that left his eyes distant and lifeless, something that would haunt the boy in years to come.

The boy simply watched on, somehow stunned into silence, as the old man strode down the hall without so much as a backward glance, opened the door, and vanished into the night.