A Single Lantern
Somewhere beyond the bend.
Night had settled quietly
over the valley.
The last traces of evening
had disappeared behind the hills, leaving only a pale strip of sky above the trees.
Rain had passed not long ago.
The road was still dark with water,
carrying the faint reflection
of whatever little light remained
in the world.
The traveler
walked
alone.
There was no moon that night.
The trees stood quietly on either side of the road, their branches moving only when the wind remembered them.
Somewhere below the hillside, a river passed through the darkness, its sound sometimes close, sometimes impossibly far away.
The traveler did not know how far the road would go.
He had been walking for a long time.
Perhaps there had once been a destination.
Perhaps there still was.
But after enough hours in the dark, destinations begin to lose their shape. A distant place becomes only a name. A promise becomes something difficult to remember. Even the thought of tomorrow can feel too far away.
So he walked.
One step.
Then another.
The road curved gently between the trees, disappearing and appearing again beneath the dim sky.
There was nothing remarkable about it.
No sign.
No house.
No voice calling from somewhere ahead.
Only the quiet sound of footsteps meeting the wet earth.
And then—
around the bend,
something appeared in the distance.
A light.
Small.
Warm.
Almost impossibly small against the darkness.
For a moment, the traveler thought it might be a star.
But the stars were higher that night.
He stopped.
There stood a single lantern.
Its light did not reach very far.
It touched the stones beneath it, caught the edges of the wet grass, and disappeared again into the darkness.
Beyond that small circle of warmth, the road remained exactly as it had been before.
Long.
Quiet.
Unknown.
The traveler stood there for a while.
He could not see where the road ended.
He could not see what waited beyond the next hill.
The lantern offered no answer.
It did not promise that the road would become easier.
It did not tell him that somewhere ahead there would be a place worth reaching.
It simply remained there.
Burning quietly in the night.
So the traveler began walking again.
The lantern slowly grew smaller behind him.
And, somewhere ahead, another darkness waited.
But now he knew something he had not known before.
The road did not have to reveal itself all at once.
Sometimes,
it was enough to see a little farther than before.
Enough to find the next stone.
The next turn.
The next few steps beneath one's feet.
And perhaps that is how some journeys continue.
Not because the darkness disappears.
Not because
we suddenly know
where we are going.
But somewhere
in the distance,
there is still
a small light
quietly refusing to go out.