Hilton Garden Inn, Memphis

Light for the sake of light. This is what’s reflected in the mind, and this is what they never understand. There is nothing left in that terrible fluorescence, certainly nothing truly illuminated . In the dark, there are the real answers. Hidden and almost within reach. And so we reach, moving and stumbling with that quiet faith reserved for the blind. But strike one match, one single match, and feel the immediate despair of Absolute. The answers are still hiding, as they’ve always been, somewhere just outside that flickering agreement of the known. But we no longer search, suddenly too anxious to stumble. Instead we sit shoulder to shoulder with small pupils, circling with the insects, and embrace our petite mort. This is the lie told to each other in the day and whispered to ourselves at night, “Don’t turn out the light.”