Glow

It was well after one when I got distracted by a soft glow coming in through the doorway. I must have left a light on somewhere. But that was confusing because I was pretty sure it had been dark everywhere. I was scared for a moment. Fear punctured the numbness. A reminder I was alive. What if someone had broken in? What if it was Alberto?

I shook away my stupid thoughts and got out of bed, heading toward the light, quickly finding the source. The olive jar by the front door was lighting up the photos on the wall. The water was shining as bright as a torch, and the vector of light beamed upward, forming a conical shape in the air. I couldn’t look directly into the jar without my eyes watering, so I stared at this light beam.

It seemed different from the beam of, say, a torch. It had a life of its own, with little fluctuations and shifts and movements. It felt like I was witnessing something that, although I couldn’t understand it, was there to be understood. Does that make sense? It felt like a kind of message. Like I was a baby mesmerized by the moving lips of a parent.

‘What the hell is happening?’ I remember asking myself.

Eventually, the light faded, and I went back to bed. Strangely, I felt calmer.

I also felt certain about one thing. I knew that, against all caution, at midnight tomorrow I would be on the beach at Cala d’Hort, awaiting an answer.