The Light Inside

Evan Karp 7,900 words
1828 28th Ave #18

Oakland, CA 94601
912 658 2333
karpekarp@gmail.com
THE LIGHT INSIDE
by Evan Karp
A leaf blew in through the window and landed on his sleeve.
He picked it up, examined: bright orange symmetry
speckled with life microscopic, a leaf from a
tree. Two fingers parted outside the window, the
leaf spiraled down to the ground.
Not many yet. The tree still covered in colors but
nights getting colder. Side street empty of motion. Leaves
leave slowly, noiselessly, borne on occasional gusts of
1
Karp / THE LIGHT / 2
wind; a stray car passing through the night stirs them up
and around again. They fall back down.
Two eyes return to the room and the objects therein
with deliberate wonder. Books on a shelf arranged to his
liking. Candles to mood. He is the wind. He is bringer of
life.
Books. All of the books. All of the words in the books
spoken for him to make sense of. Men long dead always
speaking. Dead until someone can hear them.
Chaise, his lingering indent from hours before. What
happens in this room? He does. His dust gathers corners.
Outside? Leaves fall, the ground pad layers. Stars
twinkle on til the morning. Inside too.
Far from the chair and the window students are laughing.
Same moon. Smoke and laughter. Joke after joke ever after.
Everything funny. Everything sane. Tomorrow again.
A long deep breath, head back, eyes closed. Breath
shoots out like smoke. Eyes open. He pretends to blow
smoke. He pretends to blow smoke and he knows it.
Not pretending anything. In the room to step away from all
that. The old walk from the dorm to the car to get high,
group en amoeba mass taking shape from each other.
Laughing. Conscious decisions.
We choose to do this. We choose to experience nights
together. Hello world! Hello strangers! We all friends.
Everyone special somehow. Bring it out every night, share
it, add to it.
They were still out there, doing this. Not old to them
yet. It doesn’t get old for some people.
Andy’s pumpkin smile, bowl always ready and packed.
Shadi controlling the music. Shotgun no joust! Riding
around through the city, their city now, passing lights and
big buildings without destination. Free, as everyone should
be. Hear them now telling stories from home. The way Frazad
gets lost in his anecdotes, everyone waits and then
pounces. Defense, jolly defense with a smile.
Personalities. All bring their own personal goods to
the gathering. Buttons are pushed to see what happens.
Brothers one didn’t know one had! Each one another reason
to praise the thing and rejoice together, another strong
link to a chain not yet forged. Was it all really over?
After one quick year?
New freshmen always walking the streets. Not just here
- everywhere. Some 500 miles away ex-girlfriend does same.

Not now. Always. Parents in school doing same differently.
Clothes and manners, talk through the mind, change only in
style. Too far.
High school grades. Study hard, make the cut. No
problem. There was nothing else: be a good kid, of course,
but that up to each. Make good grades. Athletics for fun,
competition. High school to get into college. Worked hard
for this.
NOW HERE: more preparation, for what: LIFE? Class is
easy. Already good kid. Fits into groups anywhere, anyone.
People appreciate presence. ‘Reflects beauty well.’
Anything more? Don’t know, hope to find out …
Should do that when: after preparation complete? After
degree received? What: is this not life already? Moments
with strangers in a car sharing secrets and personal truths
together, welcome to life – were those not real? Moments
more pregnant with knowledge than class. Textbook guide:
life in a vacuum.
What importance now? Where guidance? Not even twenty –
is this really when the roads diverge, right when the eyes
are opened!? HELLO!?! Aren’t we supposed to be learning
here?
Essays in high school. Essays in college. Life when?

Time to live or time to start learning to live. Neither?
Thanks for nothing. Didn’t anyone before go through this?
Hasn’t anyone brains or heart to change it? Stuck in the
circus. Promise of bread, work for more life in the circus.
Seals clapping pause for a treat.
What’s important now? Not grades – that proven. Easy.
Knowledge gained: useless. How to succeed in a building of
closed rooms. Thanks for the tips.
Anything more for our money? debt? time?
Time to come back to earth. Cigarette time. Focus on
breathing. The street is quiet outside. The street-light
shines onto asphalt and pine. No music: playlist history.
The two quiets collide, insistently formless.
Step back, step back. Smoke the cigarette slowly. Take
deep, deep breaths of cold air. Deep breaths, fill the
lungs with cold. Eyes widen as lungs expand. Breath out,
frost out dissolving in space. Clouds. A cold flash through
the body, smell of fresh air mixed with calm. Needles on
the flesh whisper ecstasy. Thirty out and loving it! Head
out, grass and the tree upside down. Zealous, righteous
breaths!
Now on the window stays open.

Just then the wind blew and the leaves shook and the colors
drifted softly to the ground. A cold invisible jab to the
heart. He pulled the blanket closer and put the cigarette
out in the dustbin.
Against the cushions he sank and his body trembled,
feeling the pull of the earth and his own fragile footing
upon it. The tremble – the cold. But it could be the truth
of his knowledge. He shudders. A warm smile surges through
and through. The only thing mankind must do is make peace
with the barren cold.
Sweet tree, naked and blanketless – tomorrow you
blossom!
The twists in it, the bends. The delicate limbs like
fingers reaching upward to God. The cold then. A single
night and the light will return – this always! But a long
night ahead.
Should he dance with the dying? Run outside into the
night’s cold middle and spin until he falls to the earth?
lie there looking up at the stars?
For himself?
No one would see.
If he could stand the cold then what was time? Those
numbers meant nothing. If he could go through cold then he
was fire; what could heat matter? Inside like out: natural,
fresh. The wind would blow through, work magic on him too.
His thoughts would fall and settle like the leaves and his
mind be as clear as the crisp purple sky. Royal!
But what was he thinking – this always? Now on? A
single night, more like it. One night the cold, but all
winter? Until the tree blossoms this window? This blanket,
this cold?
He was strong enough to step away from his friends,
each with such singular value. Each with his own precious
gift. But his gift – what to do with that? Add it to the
group, make the others stronger? Give the magic inside to
something that will fly away and never last? WHY? A sin to
think this! But true. And what on this earth will last?
The stars, the twinkle of the insects, all the same in and
out of the seasons. So many years will pass before anything
really changes. A man, a life – what? A generation – what?
The long view of things.
Staring at the walls, into space, out the window.

Letting everything soak in as the time rolls slowly along.
Surely, and one day death. But the nights are so long –
there’s plentiful time to take long looks down the
lifeline.
Take the long view now the time can stop. Everything
out. Distractions, all. People, even friends – especially
friends, public – even strangers. Anything that takes the
mind off the issue. Why is he sitting here?
Every moment reminder, every thought accounted for and
turned further inward.
Fresh air into courage and understanding is the secret
to growth.
Isolation would be painful. But there is no growth
without pain. Friends will hurt too. Would they grow? Up to
them; he couldn’t go on as before, mixing with the crowd
and doing as they did. He wasn’t strong enough to stand
amongst them as himself. He did not even know what that
meant but he felt it.
Each full night alone would accumulate incongruous moments,
but when it came time to shake them all out the sun would
be waiting for dancers. Collect them then – how perfect it
seemed! Winter: reflect. Spring: rebirth, put the thoughts

into flesh and let go. Summer: smile. And Fall to the
ground with praise. Take off the hat and put the toys in
the closet. Winter, cover the earth with your frost and
enchantment. When everything else is frozen man forges on …
To outdo even himself, to prove beyond doubt. He will
not move until sure of his steps again. Until then the
chair, the window, words of men long dead. Settle in for
the night, for the season.
All those trees will be barren and freezing. They will
bloom again certain and before the eyes, and in the
meantime he will stop, he will not go round like the rest
of things do. He will hover and watch it roll by and see
what there is before he goes by too. This is the year, now
is the time.
Who will leave this wintry house with treasures?
Who will stomp through ice for warmth?
So instead of teaching how to unravel school keeps you
organized and focused. Instincts replaced by routine. How
are we to guide the life inside if we never understand it?
Life, according to the world.
Spirit design. Everyone who walks the aisle accepts

the human paradigm.
Are you in school? …
Oh.
Each person learns to the degree they self-apply the
lessons. Once you’ve figured out what the classroom is and
how groups discuss topics … what’s the point of waiting
around for all to comprehend? Why not turn in? Why not
learn how to open the doors and then leave to open them?
This is what some people did who exploded. We study to
speculate: life could be this way.
Good. Bye everyone, I’m going to decide what life is.
Why stick around and learn what other people did?
Learn more, speculate often. Chew cud like bliss- and
bountiful bovine, oblivious. Meanwhile personality
accumulates like tar in your lungs, a residue of need you
consider desire. Go! Time constraints kill, habits form
without creation.
Life is a chance to define reality!
You’re alive and aware right now. Why cling? Why not
sing until you know what you want tomorrow to bring?
OH NO! Now I want to be a doctor and I missed out on
school!
Why Doctor? Can’t you fulfill that dream without a D-

r? Can’t you be who you are?
How you will eat? How you will sleep? You You You. I
thought you were good. I thought you were great. I thought
maybe you would be best in the state. I remember your
dreams they had nothing to do with your stomach. When you
first conceived of making the world beautiful you knew it
didn’t matter what happened to you and your eyes twinkled
yes you would make the world better by being a person who
made people stronger but now that you know doing that is
much harder you justify life you’re doing enough, you’re
good enough but I remember a time (and it wasn’t just once)
you resolved to be the very best. You sincerely hoped to
take all humanity into your arms and leap into higher
orbit. Now this is good enough? You believe it’s hopeless,
don’t you?
My, old dreamer, what kind of bedtime stories for the
children tonight?
Parents say these are the days, enjoy. How do I want
my memories? When school’s over there’s no time for fun. I
wish I’d done it when I could have. When you’re young. They
say this because they never learned how to follow their
dreams – if they had they would not have regrets.
One who follows his dreams goes willingly wherever

they lead. You’re a product of resignation. Probably
planned. But what were the options? What did they actually
consider?
Maybe my kids’ll do it. I can teach them and show them
with love what I never dared. Life’s over for me. I don’t
feel anything, honestly, but tired.
Don’t feel like following your dreams?
Is there anyone out there who can help me grow? Hello?
Can anyone else see what’s good for me?
How could anyone unlock the secret to my soul if
resigned to carry their own to the grave?
The stomach rumbles, calm breached slowly by thunder.
Secret wisdom: better to push than to yield. Cigarettes
fine. But does he need those?
He lights one and takes a puff. Body: not what you
need pal.
Bad taste.
Distraught, not because there isn’t food. He’s not
entitled to it. Way after the body needs it, or thinks it
needs it, after the pangs of hunger disappear he will eat.
No slave to the body. No slave to anything.
The smoke billows and billows. Flows out of the thing.

Usually smoke it, smoke before it’s gone. A curious
thought. Head sideways. What if? A life untouched,
unguided. Analyzed, digested. Experience with no action.
Just like.
A season apart. He’d watch the cig burn down without
him. Set it in motion, like eating half an apple and
watching it rust. It happens every time without fail, much
faster than watching the tree. Affirmation. Here goes …
Up goes the smoke goes up goes the smoke goes up goes
the smoke. The tree is silent as ever, the house immobile
across the street. People live there now, different people
than before and at some point other people too will live
there. One day the house will be gone.
No fair, cheating to take eyes off the smoke. What
does it matter to let it burn down if you aren’t watching?
He looks at it. At least he wouldn’t smoke when he
didn’t need to. Body: eat. But he’d watch it burn instead.
Let time pass, let it all pass and he would still be
there.
People decide what they do before they turn into dust.
The light has been lit, the fire is started. Burn as you
please. The smoke, it billows and billows. What was he
doing?
The traffic light changed the asphalt from red to
green but all was quiet and cold. This might be the only
chance to take a long, uninterrupted look out the window.
What could be more important? Not just to see in front of
him – routine, homework, degree – to see what the men who
wrote the books saw. To see what life is before living it.
Why must he step away to see this?
On the other side of the window life was going on without
pause. Down the hall Dan and Jonny slept soundly and the
other students in their dorms and apartments and houses,
wherever they were, slept soundly; and the businessmen with
bank accounts and the farmers, wherever they were, slept
soundly in their beds; the whole blinking city out there
slept soundly and sure as the blinking clock across the
room kept repeating its answers.
Cig.
They were all deciding not to deal with it now, or not
all at once, or not all at all. Sleeping every night at the
same time no matter what, as if tomorrow brings a magical
clue or solution to the riddle they pretend not to ignore.
Let it come. Let the days pass by like thoughts. Smoke
pack after pack without thinking, questioning, forming

opinions. It doesn’t matter what happens. Float like the
refuse of a shipwreck, cut across the liquid like an ice
skater. Skills on the surface, fine. What about the depths?
The skies? What about the people who once said we could
fly? What about the ones who can but never stop to try?
Have they all decided already what the world is, what
it means, what they want to do with their lives? One day at
a time, over and over, people doing jobs they have no
respect for, suspending their time in places they despise,
putting up with so much bullshit they actually hate
themselves. How painful and sad this is, colorless, far
from the calling! For something people. Don’t just live!
Cig remains, but what of it? Smokes unaided, he’s done
holding it isn’t a torch. Puts it down in the tray, does
not put it out. Burn.
These people once played on playgrounds. They danced
in the garden of Eden. What happened? Why do they run from
themselves? Why do they treasure their own trite desires?
Why do they take whatever they can?
As children we’re taught to follow our passions, to
honor the impulse as gold. We sail through ocean dreams. In
college the lesson it isn’t a dream.
Who dares say this to youth with new meaningful light

in their sockets? Those who miss it.
Nate sympathized with the colorless, gave them voice.
We don’t want to prepare anymore we want to enjoy life
now. We were never taught how to live. There was no time
for ourselves. We were too busy trying to get good lives
and even the ones who tried did not have examples to
follow: this is what it’s like not to stand in line and
before we knew it we had kids we maybe didn’t plan for and
a wife or a husband with whom we never agree. It’s too late
now. Too late to follow our hearts, they’re broken. Now we
enjoy what we can. It’s the simple things that matter
anyway, the little things, and we kill the pain however and
whenever we can.
He picks up the light from the side table and lights
the smoke, sits back a bit and exhales. A timeframe begins.
Over the course of the cigarette he would hardly move. What
would happen? He looks around with a touch of indifference.
There are infinite moments to each smoke and not a single
reason to rush for anything.
To take things as they come – that is the key to
meeting moments in stride. Students rush from place to
place, task to task, mindless of the world they inhabit.
They cling to routine as if a missed step would abolish the

ground; they cling to the little they know, and blindness
shields them. From danger. From life.
He takes another puff off the cig and ash tumbles down
to his shirt. It will stay there.
All advice to continue. Encouragement: positive,
sincere, but nothing else. How is one to learn if he’s the
only one speaking?
The stub in his hand coughed out its last breaths and
the body remained in his fingers. These lessons, ideas,
germs, these seedlings put into the students in the hopes
that one might catch and grow there – what are they then
but general knowledge, stored and useless? These texts do
not affect the students or change how they live. Is he
supposed to digest them or just spit them back up?
Teacher asks if everyone understands but there is no
nod and there is no hand. The stillness of death settles
early and firm.
Say something professor! Guide us!
‘Listen up class: this is what you need to know for
the exam.’ Teaching classes, not students.
He lifts his hand for a drag but realizes halfway up
and tosses the butt to the floor. That drag would have been
subconscious.
The tree is always there. Without thoughts, it takes the
nutrients it needs and grows as it’s able. When it’s time
the leaves fall and in the Spring they grow again. The
roots grow firm, the branches branch out. Life is nothing
to that tree but growth: it cannot decide otherwise.
Tree. Where are my roots? And what are my nutrients?
Roots in this room, food in these books, ideas? Roots in
the thoughts of the men before me? My thoughts – my
thoughts, tree? I do not have my own thoughts yet. I have
not yet become an idea but I’m trying. How do you think I
fare, beautiful tree? What is my progress this Fall? I take
strength from you. Tonight I will copy one of your leaves
and carry it with me forever. Part of you has blossomed
inside me. It will not fall like the others. It will not
disappear with the season. You have birthed and nurtured a
fine thing that will last long after you fall. And who
knows what it will give birth to!
He picks up the leaf and holds it in front of the
tree.
Give me the grace to duplicate beauty! Let me
faithfully render creation! Oh god, tree!
Teachers, formal education – forgotten.

Show us a leaf! Show us a man who can stand up and
praise a leaf for an hour – then we will listen! Show us a
man who does not need books, who is a book, and we will
read him with care. Tree, what can you teach in a season?
One tree, one leaf, a pen and some paper. Cigs and a
lighter. This will be class.
In the corner flickers: a person on the street? Late
for that … 4:30. Nothing moves when the sun goes down. A
specter goes by without pausing. Must have seen the light:
the boy in the chair in the window, reflected from the
street.
Dreaming?
People know what they’re doing but not what it means.
Pathetic: not that nobody knows, but that nobody cares
to find out.
If I keep doing this something good will happen.
Nobody looks at life from the grave.
Always hunger. Not how to kill it. Friends now.
He puts the gnawing onto the page in front of him,
determined to copy this leaf. First a few deep strokes for

the contour, a scrap page to find the right feeling. No
intention of getting it right the first time.
Leaf leaf leaf.
To copy an image into the soul: to possess it. This
leaf will always be there, in the recess, symbolizing this
time in the room that he made the first stand. Symbolizing
what he chooses to make it symbolize. For this time will
mean what he makes it mean. True?
There is no certainty, but the time will mean
something, and probably dear, and the tree will continue to
grow in this memory. However it forms.
And what about him? How render that?
Every day ends, bodies crumple and disappear, lives
lose substance and cease to matter. What meaning can one
lose that he doesn’t have?
He would fill himself with meaning first, then he’d
have something to lose. Did that make sense?
It’s not about any one person: him, you, me, her; it’s
not about what happens to us but what we impress on the
world. It’s not about people but life: adorning it,
beautifying, praising it. What matters be worthy of copy,
like the leaf, that each man be stronger and worthier than
the man before. Yes, again yes, the leaf. But what about
him? What will be left of his life as a person? Bones.
Nutrients for other life.
But what of the spirit? What of personality? What
about everything that builds up in a person? What about
what we think is beautiful?
If he could translate the beauty of a single leaf he’d
in some ways be worthy its beauty. No small feat!
As he was finding out. Even a leaf isn’t easy to draw.
The scrap paper gone, two more sheets gone, the contour
alone causing problems. The outer, most apparent part a
problem! He takes a deep breath to step back without
moving.
Every path chosen is a singular way to deal with the pain
and sadness of being alone. Every leaf that falls gets to
choose how it wants to use its colors before they’re gone.
The girl in the street a shadow of a person passing through
the night like clockfeet, going in circles, every night the
ritual borne of some personal need.
How hard it is to drift away with composure! What
sacred acquiescence it takes to affirm this existence!
Each path comes to this question: keep your eyes open
and create your own meaning, or seek illusion in the form

of people, drugs, work, religion, god. How understandable
it is to surround yourself with others! How hard it is to
separate willingly, to make this decision and live by it.
He traces his hand on the page and looks at it.
Traces the leaf in the palm.
Happy with the image, empty and small as it is, he
sets it against a large photograph of his ex-girlfriend.
Significance costs him a breath. Did not want to replace
her beauty!
Aware of his breaths he places the drawing in his lap.
Frost onto the frame he is breathing. Was this all he
needed to do? Replace this picture and be okay?
The tree seemed to watch as he slid the glass from its
frame. He knew the picture, that she was not what he wanted
to keep, but he would not admit this to himself, was not
strong enough to throw it away. He slid the picture in
behind the drawing.
From this hour he would see the fair image of her soul
in every leaf. More than the one true love, more than the
missed opportunity, more even than the bullet that slew
him; no longer a girl or the girl but love of all Life,
Beauty. Not something meant to latch onto but carried in

the soul as a token, reminder of the delicate balance
between himself and the rest of the world. One more silent
tribute to the face of the first, hidden already, or
finally, out of sight.
Behind the leaf in his palm would be the first one
that fell from his hands. And the last. He could not put
her back but he could not let her go either. Her face
burned into his soul, mistake: to put all your love in one
person. A burden then? She will be a burden only if beauty
can be that. The burden beauty.
There had been a time, and not so long before, when
such a thought would have brought tears to his eyes. But
now, though he thought perhaps he could feel a new
emptiness, and one that burned, he had no tears to confirm
this. Emotions: what to do with those? He closed his eyes.
Eventually shook head yes, opened his eyes, and took a
clean sheet of paper from the drawer. Back to the leaf.
A knock on the door?
Carefully he places the blanket aside. Slowly he
unroots from the chaise.
Jonny.
> Hey, dude. Brought you some dumplings. Don’t know if
you’ve eaten, in a while …

Who is this roommate, this friend?
They had experienced nights together, sure – but in
the end they had crossed paths by chance, had known each
other little more than a year.
They stood in the doorway with a plate of dumplings
steaming between them, two arms giving and two taking.
Pause: four hands hold the plate.
It was not fair that Jonny should do this, that he
should feel compelled to look after Nate like some invalid
child. Nor was it right that another human should have to
feel the pain, even if only remotely, of another individual
just because they share the same house. Nevertheless.
Nate stepped aside so Jonny would enter – an
invitation not spoken. He looked at his roommate with
anguish.
When they were both seated Nate fumbled with a pen
until it fell to his lap. Jonny would have to understand.
It didn’t matter though, in the end. What did he know? An
image from freshman year, a semester in the same house, the
closed door, their friends saying Nate’s not himself,
Nate’s broken? Impossible to express who you really are!
This is not who I am Jonny, I am not a quitter or a
mess or a boy who is broken!

The ashtray overflows, there are butts on the floor,
plates stacked high with remnants of meals he did not have
the heart to ingest.
> I’m not coming back to school next semester.
Nate heard his own voice say this. It sounded like he
had a thousand books on his chest. Strange, that he who
once showed such promise was now deciding to walk away. The
world seemed to whisper: Nate’s dropping out of school.
Nate’s dropping out. It was spoken.
He looked at Jonny to see his reaction. What would he
say? Even a sympathetic friend will have a hard time
supporting your decision to stop doing what he plans to
continue.
> You’re sure?
They were as separate as could be in the night, in
opposite corners looking down.
Life can be like this.
> I don’t want to. … I always thought I’d go to an Ivy
League school and succeed with the best in the world. …
Who’s to say I wouldn’t have, right?
Nate smiled.
> You’re supposed to find yourself in college right? I
found myself. What’s the point in staying? Right? But at

the same time I feel like I’m waving goodbye to my dreams,
you know? And even though I do think they’re shallow, they
are the only ones I’ve had. Or held onto for this long.
It’s not like I can play major league baseball now, you
know? What am I going to do?
> What are you gonna do?
> I don’t know. … I want to live a life I believe in,
with all of my heart. … I want to decide how to live based
on who I am and what I have to offer. That’s not what I’m
learning – what I have inside me. Not in school, anyway. I
learned whatever I know of that in this room.
He thought for a moment. The world was calm.
> I guess you could say I’ve learned in school that
what I have to give is not something I need school to
understand or develop. I’ve learned in school, basically,
that school’s not for me – that’s all.
He felt the decision was right then. It was not the
logic but his instincts, which created the logic, that
convinced him. This was his decision.
Jonny would be sorry to see him go. He said so, and
with sincerity. They would stay in touch.
Nate did not believe this. He had just said goodbye.

When Jonny closed the door Nate remained in a reverie for a
long time. The whole semester played out in his head, his
whole scholastic life did, and he saw that his story never
had ended; he’d taken this time not to leave anything
important behind, made sense of it, and would soon be ready
to stand up and walk away. Forward!
Musing thus, a noise broke his thought. The careless
pace past the window, eyes at slow feet. Walking with an
indifferent moon on the asphalt in the cold, hugging
herself, all just to get through the night. We all came out
of the womb for this, went through childhoods and dreams.
What pain gave birth to this desolate ritual?
HOW back to the task? What task? That girl is broken.
His elbow knocked the lamp against the wall. Panicked,
he looked out the window. She was looking straight at him.
Under the streetlight her face seemed to shine some
ancient knowledge into his room. Not a look: a transmission
of some untranslatable message. Symbols rushed in, images
that did not make sense: spades, clovers, kings, lovers:
all flashing hieroglyph beams, each fleeting moment new
strange meanings, communication through some new form. Lost
in this inundation of light-pictures Nathan stared and
received but was blinded.

He realized she was gone. The flashes continued,
trapped in his brain. What in the world was that all about?
What was that? She did not seem human, and was off in the
night like a phantom.
Did the moon just speak? Had the earth sent some
stranger to warn him? He did not know, but could not get
back to the leaf.
When dawn arrived he was sprawled out in the chaise with
his shoes on and his jacket zipped up. The jeans he wore
were weeks old and wrinkled, frayed, spotted with
miscellany. He had not moved in hours. His eyes were still
moonbeams. Injected with something he felt like. That girl.
That look! The candles were still burning and the light was
still on.
Shaking for hours, aware of nothing, the night had
passed by in an instant. Trapped. Like a light particle
bouncing off mirrors in every direction, charged to the
bone. Today he was going to class.
Mrs. Abernathy’s class. Something in the moment with
that stranger had wiped him clean of certainty and doubt.

Who knows if he’d ever be able to speak sweet English
again! Or close his mouth, open from shock. He would sit in
class and observe all the people. It was time to go back
into public. To reflect – off of others.
The trip there was a dream. The car ride in silence,
musicless, thoughtless, an audio-free clip from an
independent film. Wholly meaningless without an audience.
The car parked, the walk down the street and into the
building, the seat assumed, books pulled out and put on the
table, pen too. Faulkner. Go ahead.
He was early. The seats were arranged in a semi-circle
around the room with Abernathy’s desk in front of the
board. Still. Nathan sat directly across from her and
looked unabashedly at each new person who walked into
class. They were all there, all the ones who’d been there
before.
And all in the same exact seats! His glaringly empty
this whole time – what that must have done to poor Mrs.
Abernathy! A vacant seat staring her straight in the face
every day. Did she spew out her lessons there? Did she see
him sitting there as she spoke about Faulkner’s personal
life? Did she wonder at all?
It was clear he read the book. He observed and spoke

only when no one knew what to say. Provided page numbers.
Abernathy pretended not to notice, or care, but the others
looked askance. What’s that kid’s name again, anyway?
Hasn’t been to class in how long?
Later that night a phone call from dad. Seems ol’ Abs
called concerned about a drug problem. She should know
better … almost three months since he’s touched marijuana.
How funny! Pop told her point blank: he was home last
weekend and the other son threw a party and he himself –
yes he, Nathan’s father, passed Nate a joint and he turned
it down. What did she have to say about that?
> Then he needs professional counseling.
Nate could hear his father coughing on the phone after
a nice deep drag off a number.
> I know. I kept trying to pass it to him.
Of course she did not understand. But did she ever approach
him? Not so much as a word. She avoided his eyes and his
presence. He had not asked for help but, bent on it,
supposedly, did she know how to give it?
It was one of those untimely days when the subsequent

season makes itself felt, such a nice day that class would
be held outside by the fountain.
They sat in a line with the teacher in front; she
paced from one end to the other while the students spoke
over the splashing. Much of the same: basic summary of text
with little analysis and not a hint of application.
Discussion rambled on with the lazy intent of a sated
bumblebee until a hornet flew into the scene and caused a
shameful commotion. Immediately Faulkner was forgotten. The
girls screamed and took cover behind whatever they found –
boys, bookbags, textbooks, bushes – and the boys were
finicky shields. Abernathy? Took several large steps back
and swatted the air with her text. Nate could not help but
smile – internally – at how fitting it was to see her
swinging the book wildly into the air like she didn’t know
how to use it. Funny plus depressing equals pathetic. He
did not flinch, and the hornet landed on his nose.
Moment after moment passed, long enough for the
children to locate the hornet. Why exactly had it landed on
Nate’s nose? He stared directly ahead of him at Mrs.
Abernathy the whole time, utterly unconcerned. He knew why.
Life will be a nameless fight few will respect or even
be able to see. There will be times when people look at you

like you’re worthless, like you’ve turned your back on
everything important when in fact you’ve done exactly the
opposite. What you value will be mocked to your face. You
will not be understood and you will not even care to be
understood.
There will be problems you can never solve. You may
find there are not even problems. Nights and years will
pass and you will live your life in closed rooms and you
will find that you did so by choice, and you will weep for
nights not spent under the stars and the very elements you
once went inside to escape. Now you escape from people. You
will avoid new contacts except through necessity and keep a
distance between yourself and others, and all in the name
of the most holy – something you will question always.
And little by little the human touch will evaporate
from your veins, and though your voice will grow stronger
and louder no one you care about will be around to listen
because you will have left them all behind. And the whole
time you will be in the room, in rooms across the country
maybe, perhaps the world, but rooms all the same, crafting
and sharpening your own personal sense of beauty so that
what? So the few people after you who care enough will do
the same. Because remarkable lives are no longer lived in

public. Humanity is not something we can proudly take part
in, and though it seems to have failed who knows? There
might be a chance that some time in the future the seeds of
belief will find the right people to grow in, and
righteousness will return to the earth in the bodies of
human beings as we know them.
Abernathy looked right in his eyes, and all Nate could
think was the girl from the street, the glowing symbol
transmissions, the hieroglyphs he knew she would never
understand. He focused his feelings into his gaze. Put his
soul in his eyes, flashed the burn with intent. He wanted
to shoot moonbeams so deep into her body they would never
get out, trapped and blazing with images she’d never take
the time off to translate. She was scared, but there was
nothing malevolent about him. It was truth he shot, truth
that would bring her back to life. He wanted to shoot a bit
of Faulkner her way, out of his soul and, if it had ever
been there, back into hers.
That was the last time he ever went to class. It would do
neither him nor the others any good. Let them take what
they want out of life – he certainly would. And as for

Abernathy … jesus. Who cares? School isn’t some magical
place post-adolescents go to learn about life. It’s a
training ground for success in the real world. No one,
however, defines that reality, and few ever mention it.
They look at the serious kid with amazement. As if to say
Oh my god, yes! And then quickly that look becomes You
don’t have a fighting chance. They mean choice, because
they didn’t make it.
Everyone has a chance to define reality, and the
choice to either take or ignore that chance.
But what had he chosen? He had closed a door too.
Goodbye school, education. He would not get that piece of
paper. What could it give him that he didn’t already have?
Not dignity. One look around the classroom was enough to
answer that question. It was some vague promise of
permanent security, an illusion he already saw through. Why
buy it now when what he’d have to do to get it would
compromise the self he’d already fought for? The self,
boiled down to basics and built upon, or the promise of a
comfortable life no matter what self made it to graduation.
Compromise once, twice aint nothin.
He knew what the deal was and made it proudly. So what if

his clothes weren’t ironed or clean? So what if he couldn’t
buy things he didn’t need? He didn’t need that. Others did.
You look so good designer ghosts!
Let me smell the perfumed rubbish.
Do you sleep in that outfit?
Do you recognize yourself when you’re naked?
When he looked in the mirror now naked he saw the
tree. Was he healthy? Malnourished, undoubtedly. Reserved
as a parking space for the King. On the level of
appearances faring quite badly, true. But underneath the
currents rage wild and electric. The soil is fertile and
rich. He has learned how to harvest the smallest
perceptions and harbor – and tame – the largest
monstrosities. Nothing can startle him now: a skeleton in
the flesh.
He looked at the poor little leaf on the table:
withered before he could render it justly. Now he could
only copy the corpse. He could keep it but it would be like
putting dirt in his pockets. Or eat it – but at best he
would only take a piece of it with him.
Emotionless, wordless, and radiant he looks at the
colorless leaf and feels a twinkle in the eyes. He looks
around the room in increments, stopping and taking notes of

this place, night. Convinced of his rightness, happiness
floods satisfaction. Fall will be over soon. The semester
will end and he will have made it. Stronger, more alive!
The road ahead would be full of hardship and pain; he would
lose the things and people he had, slowly, one after
another. But without pain there is no growth. And without
growth … Without striving after growth one may as well lay
down and die.
The road ahead, yes. It was then he realized he would
have to make another decision. The season successful … but
the rest of life? This thought flashing as if it hadn’t
occurred to Nate throughout the long nights. He grabs for
the pack and hastily lights one.
When he’d made that choice had he not made it for
ever? What good would it be to have spent that semester
inside and then live less intensely than he knew he was
able? Especially now out of college! He would have to be
serious or a failure or the time he just spent in his room
was a waste, which to say would betray everything he knows
to be true. If serious, then what?
He looked down at the cigarette and then out the
window. In that moment his face replaced a grotesque fear

with a mask of disgust. He thought about this for a long
time.
That night he looked further than he ever had. He saw
his own future and the future of everyone like him …
wherever they were, there had to be others like him; he was
not foolish enough to believe himself alone.
What would it mean to be serious for people like this?
What would it mean if he forged his own beliefs out of the
sky and lived by them for the rest of his life?
A heavy presence through the air made itself felt, his eyes
open. He was clutching his knees on the chaise and the cig
had burned to the stub. The girl stood across the street as
before, looking into the window and waiting. He rose and
opened the door going out of his room not to the bathroom
now but past it, through the common room and out the old
sturdy oak front door, down the cement steps and through
the yard overgrown with weeds wet from dew and fresh clean
life he could not see but feel he could, yes, through his
bare feet the earth spoke clearly as it always had and
clearly as it always would. Around the corner now, under
the window, the specter across the street.
Both stood silent and still with the street in between

them, waiting for nothing but motionless. Childhoods had
been lived out and unknown to each other. Histories
different. But each somehow a version of the same … they
understood each other by looking though they knew nothing
at all.
Nathan crossed the street and moved toward the girl.
As he approached she continued her walk and he fell beside
her without a word. They crossed the big street and took
the circle around. House after house with the lights out.
He and the girl looked separately at them. Papers were
already wet in the grass and the bushes. Nathan did not
feel compelled to speak but sensation propelled him. He
turned all thoughts of the girl back onto himself.
Addressing himself as a stranger.
He enjoyed this and made a point to walk slowly,
savoring each deliberate step and squirrel, porch, thought,
every night spent separate and faithful. Who knows what
this night will bring? Who knows what the end of this road
will bring? Who knows when one gets it into his head to
sing if he’ll sing? Or dance down the road with a shadow?
His feet started pushing dead leaves through the
street making noise. The girl did same out of time making
music. They kicked leaves down the street until they came
around to the house again. The light was on in the window,
the chaise empty, the place as still as the others. They
sat in the grass across the street and looked up at the
window and the light and the tree.
They did not touch or kiss or fall in love. They did
not speak or share or wonder. They sat in the grass and
smoked cigarettes until the sun came up while the tree by
the window stood barren and patient and the light inside
stayed on even though there was nobody there to use it.
They watched the room grow dim as the earth gave birth to
another day which for them was just a light they could not
keep burning.
END

The Light Inside

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Light Inside

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Evan Karp 7,900 words

1828 28th Ave #18

THE LIGHT INSIDE

A leaf blew in through the window and landed on his sleeve.

He picked it up, examined: bright orange symmetry

speckled with life microscopic, a leaf from a

tree. Two fingers parted outside the window, the

leaf spiraled down to the ground.

Not many yet. The tree still covered in colors but

nights getting colder. Side street empty of motion. Leaves

leave slowly, noiselessly, borne on occasional gusts of

wind; a stray car passing through the night stirs them up

and around again. They fall back down.

Two eyes return to the room and the objects therein

with deliberate wonder. Books on a shelf arranged to his

liking. Candles to mood. He is the wind. He is bringer of

Books. All of the books. All of the words in the books

speaking. Dead until someone can hear them.

Chaise, his lingering indent from hours before. What

happens in this room? He does. His dust gathers corners.

Outside? Leaves fall, the ground pad layers. Stars

twinkle on til the morning. Inside too.

Everything funny. Everything sane. Tomorrow again.

A long deep breath, head back, eyes closed. Breath

shoots out like smoke. Eyes open. He pretends to blow

smoke. He pretends to blow smoke and he knows it.

Not pretending anything. In the room to step away from all

group en amoeba mass taking shape from each other.

Laughing. Conscious decisions.

We choose to do this. We choose to experience nights

together. Hello world! Hello strangers! We all friends.

Everyone special somehow. Bring it out every night, share

it, add to it.

yet. It doesn’t get old for some people.

Andy’s pumpkin smile, bowl always ready and packed.

Shadi controlling the music. Shotgun no joust! Riding

big buildings without destination. Free, as everyone should

gets lost in his anecdotes, everyone waits and then

pounces. Defense, jolly defense with a smile.

Personalities. All bring their own personal goods to

the gathering. Buttons are pushed to see what happens.

to praise the thing and rejoice together, another strong

link to a chain not yet forged. Was it all really over?

After one quick year?

New freshmen always walking the streets. Not just here

- everywhere. Some 500 miles away ex-girlfriend does same.

Not now. Always. Parents in school doing same differently.

Clothes and manners, talk through the mind, change only in

style. Too far.

High school grades. Study hard, make the cut. No

problem. There was nothing else: be a good kid, of course,

but that up to each. Make good grades. Athletics for fun,

competition. High school to get into college. Worked hard

NOW HERE: more preparation, for what: LIFE? Class is

easy. Already good kid. Fits into groups anywhere, anyone.

People appreciate presence. ‘Reflects beauty well.’

Anything more? Don’t know, hope to find out …

Should do that when: after preparation complete? After

degree received? What: is this not life already? Moments

with strangers in a car sharing secrets and personal truths

together, welcome to life – were those not real? Moments

more pregnant with knowledge than class. Textbook guide:

What importance now? Where guidance? Not even twenty –

are opened!? HELLO!?! Aren’t we supposed to be learning