In the black of midnight, you don’t expect things to change; too much hides in its dark shadows. Even if you blink yourself awake to try to fight it, you succumb to its slumber; the surreal becomes your reality.
You become a shadow yourself, so nothing seems wrong with your new visions. The shadows before midnight and after don’t change; the new day is nothing more than an illusion of a clock, but the shadows still remain, and you with them.
And here it is, once more a new midnight surrounding the new day. A vigil of candles surround the creatures of the dark that have come out of the crevices. It is like an homage to the underworld, hiding its supplicants from the moonlight. The fire that burns is a small window into some world far away.
You stare into the candles, telling yourself: there is a world that exists in light somewhere, but where? Light is nothing but a myth that you speak stories of, for you will be asleep when the sun opens its eyes and long past that as well. So what else is real but the twilight within?
It is the procession of rituals that has led to this moment: the funeral that celebrates the end of life, the matrimony that seals the beginning of a union. So many paths: you look at the candles and know the meaning of ritual. In the illumination, you see into the souls around you: when the night becomes the coldest, this is when you seek the comfort of warmth, and your vision the strongest.
This is when you find what you have been seeking, the thing you have been looking for has found you, and the connection you didn’t know you wanted, has instead has found you by leading you to this moment. You see it once your vision has locked onto the one you have sought. It is mutual: you both see it in each other, without knowing for sure what it is you have found. In the shelter of one another, it is always a joy to meet, no matter what the shadows tell otherwise.
You can’t tell a new day has begun in the darkness. It has: the candles show the way to a new beginning, and you find your path along its light.