Found the Light

“Now what?” I asked.

Stephen didn‘t look at me. “I don’t know.”

He had hit a patch of ice, and we had slid off the road, overturning the old Buick in a ditch a few miles outside of town. We were both fine, and had crawled out the windows. The snow was coming down, and the night was well underway.

“Do you have a cell?” I asked.

“No. It’s home. Charging.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

We both stood there a moment longer. The cold ached in my bones, and the tip of my nose was chilling quickly. Stephen kept shuffling around his side of the car, mumbling.

“I guess all we can do is walk,” I said.

“Okay.”

We climbed up out of the ditch, and took a few seconds to look up and down the road, trying to get our directional bearings. Which way we had come, which way we were going, which way was quickest. We went left (from the car’s perspective).

“What if someone finds the car?” Stephen asked.

“Yeah?”

“And we aren’t there?”

“I don’t know. They’ll probably call the police.”

“Will I get in trouble? Leaving the scene of an accident?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. But, what are you supposed to do? Wait in the cold? Die out there? Take the ticket if that’s what it comes to.”

“Yeah,” he said.

We walked into the black, weaving silently between the drifts of windswept snow, less like humans, and more like shadows now. Shadows in a world of frozen black. The whole idea was very romantic, and disturbed me. How does getting into a car accident, and then trudging ten miles of frozen barely plowed back road become some scene of beauty to me? What the fuck is wrong with me?

“If we see a house, maybe we should stop and ask to use the phone,” he said.

“Sure. It’s better than freezing to death.”

“Okay.”

Stephen seemed disappointed. Not in the sense that his car was in the ditch, but in the sense that he had been unable to prevent his car from going into the ditch. Some self-observed reflection on his character. I never understood that about him. His perfect ability to prove his own perceived worthlessness.

“My dad is going to be so pissed at me,” he said.

“Your dad?”

“Yeah. Fuck.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Sure he will, Christ.”

“He’ll probably just be happy you’re okay. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Maybe. I’d be pissed at me.”

“Man, you have to knock that shit off. It was an accident.”

He was silent.

After a few minutes, I said; “Remember that time when we were kids, and I was sleeping over in your basement, and in the dark you walked into that fucking pole in the middle of your basement?”

I heard him chuckle. “Yeah. I do. What’d I say? I remember you burst out laughing.”

“Found the pole.”

He laughed. “Yeah. Found the pole.”

“It was hilarious.”

“It was. Fuck. This is the adult equivalent of that. Found the ditch.”

I laughed. “Yeah. I guess so. That’s a little funny in its own right.”

“I guess. Christ, wasn’t I supposed to change at some point, become an adult somewhere along the way?”

“What? What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, like I said, this is the adult equivalent, I’m the same fucking person. Wasn’t I supposed to, I don’t know, get smarter, grow up, mature?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a myth. Maybe adulthood is just childhood coated in a thick slime of defeat and shattered dreams.”

“In that case, my slime must be feet deep.”

“It’s all okay man. We’ll get your car out in a couple of hours.”

“Yeah.”

We walked on, and saw no houses.

My fingers began to go numb, and the serious fear of frostbite settled into my brain. I breathed into my sleeves, balled them up, and did all I could to keep my extremities warm.

“You keeping your fingers and shit warm?” I asked.

“Yeah. Still fucking freezing though. Why are there no houses out here?”

“Because we’re in the middle of nowhere. Remember?”

“Oh yeah. I’m trying to think of where the last house we drove past was, and now, I can’t remember even seeing one outside of town. That can’t be right though, can it?”

“I don’t know. Eventually, if we just keep as warm as possible and walking, we’ll find something.”

A glow filled the air, illuminating trees and snowfall. I could see Stephen for the first time in what very well may have been an hour or two. He was looking forward. “Do you see that?” he asked.

I looked where he was looking. The road ahead of us twisted off to the right, but the light shone through the tree line, straight ahead. “Yeah. House?”

“I don’t know. Just came on. Maybe a porch light?”

“Maybe. Want to check it out?” I asked.

“Can’t hurt. I don’t see anything else anywhere.”

“Okay.” I was excited. The prospect of warmth. A phone. Maybe a cup of coffee. A trip home to my bed.

We picked up our pace and hundred yards later, we reached the glowing tree line.

“Well? Ready?” I asked.

“Let’s go.”

I stepped off of the road, into the snow. My foot sunk down a few inches into the snow, and I almost immediately regretted my decision, but, a house so near by would be worth the wet shoes in the end. I walked between the trees, into the forest.

“This is kind of beautiful,” I said. The light cut deep, straight shadows among the trees, thick black lines against bright virgin snow and vertical trunks, who knows how tall. The light seemed to be filling the forest, like a stadium light, and it wasn’t until we had been walking among the underbrush for maybe ten minutes that it dawned on me.

“Does that light seem bright to you?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s a light.”

“No, I mean, like really fucking bright. Stadium bright. Spotlight bright.”

Stephen stopped and looked at it. After a few seconds, he said; “Yeah. You’re right. What do you think it is?”

“Well, I think porch light is out.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know. Is there a warehouse or a factory out here that you know of?”

“No, but, I don’t really come out here that often.”

“Right.”

“We should still find out what it is, though I think. Whatever it is, it seems like it could be useful. Where there’s bright lights, there’s usually a phone right?”

“Is that a rule?”

“I don’t know, but it kind of makes sense,” he said.

“Okay.”

Stephen walked on, and I followed.

Another ten minutes passed, and the tree line broke. We found ourselves standing in front of a great cavernous light, hundreds of feet tall, and half as wide, immeasurably deep, and just so gently warm.

“What…?” I asked.

“It’s warm.” Stephen reached his hand out. “It just, sends the cold away.”

“I wouldn’t touch it.”

“It’s okay.” Stephen smiled, his arm stretched out, and began to walk toward it.

I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him down into the snow, melting in front of the light.

He looked at me, kindly. “It’s okay.”

“No you fucking idiot. I don’t know what’s going in here, but we just walked a half hour into the forest to find a mile high pussy of light, and this is somehow okay to you?”

“Yes.” He began to get up.

“No. We need to leave. I pulled him backward as he stood up, back toward the tree line. I didn’t think I was warm enough to make the walk back out, but this wasn’t right, and I had to try. Something was happening to my friend, and I certainly didn’t need it to happen to me.

Stephen stopped and stood still, almost smiling at me.

I pulled on his sleeve. Yanked, but it had no effect. “Stop fucking around you asshole. This isn’t funny!”

“It’s okay,” he repeated.

“No, no it fucking isn’t!” I pulled on him some more, and he turned back toward the great light, as if my pull had exactly the effect of a small insect. “Stephen, get your ass back hear you fucking asshole! Stephen!”

“It’s okay,” he called back to me. “It’s okay.”

“Stephen!”

I made one last attempt to stop him. I ran up behind him, threw my arm around his chest, and tried my hardest to yank him downward, but I just slid off. And he stepped into the great luminous abyss.

I was in the car. Upside down. My vision fading in and out. Someone was banging on the car.

“Hey you! You in there! Can you hear me?!”

My whole body ached. I turned to see Stephen next to me. He was bleeding everywhere.

“Are you okay?!”


“Are you okay?!”