the+lights

media type="custom" key="2990992" the lights by Sara Jansson

Nobody ever has dreams around here. That's all I've been saying for the past few days.

Upon leaving Friday afternoon, I drove the entire six hours up the Sprain Parkway, up through Connecticut, college country, into the ever-mild Rhode Island, before arriving along the New England coast.

I wasn't really thinking about anything the entire way. My body knew the route, my hands and feet took over, leading the way as my mind hung along for the ride, vaguely aware of the journey. I took minimal notice of the locations, as everything was the way I had left it once before, the landscape immortal and permanent.

I remember the last bit of civilization was the bridge over the bay, all lit up in the night. Whoever was in charge around here commissioned the bridge to be decked out in red and green lights for the Christmas season, in addition to the permanent lights, beaming with their subtle blues and whites, purples and yellows. The whole car got all bright when I drove over the bridge. My pupils grew, as the light flicked across the dashboard and up over my face.

I drove over the bridge, the lights darted off. My body took over again, maneuvering the car on its own.

It was dark and still when I arrived. Not a damn streetlight in this backwoods town. The only lights were the golden ones from behind every curtained window of all the houses nestled in on the cozy street.

This wave of familiarity hit me when I opened the front door. I was relieved and frightened at the same time.

It snowed last night. I was all alone in my room, not looking out the window, so I had no idea until this morning. I wasn't planning on going out, but he knocked on our door.

He, the boy who lives next door. We've grown up together. Five years old our eyes met when we both stood at the end of our driveway, him coloring with chalky hands, and me climbing into the car. Oh gross, a girl, he said. Too young to realize how girls grow up.

Am I still gross? I doubt it now as our eyes meet in the open doorway. His eyes are amber, huge, stuck in his perpetually pale face. It looks brighter against the seven or eight inches of overnight snow.

The town square, he says. Have I seen it? Urgency heats his words, so I sigh and reach for my coat. And at least, I think, it hasn't snowed back home yet.

Yes, nobody ever has dreams around here. They stay in their childhood houses until they grow up and then they go and buy a new one down the street. They raise their children here to raise their children here. They never leave, and I can't tell whether or not they want to. I think they'd like to, but they are just too afraid that they won't like anything else they aren't accustomed to.

People remember me here, because I'm the one who leaves and comes back and leaves again. There is big news today around here. Excitement but worry flurries the air like the snow that fell last night. But the weather is calm now. The sky is gray and the Earth is white and the bare trees are black. The painted houses seem colorless and bleak. He tells me I have to see it. I have to see it. It's huge, nothing like this has ever happened before.

He grabs my mitten hand, and we take off running with everybody else. I don't know why, and I don't think I even care. My breath vapors back the way I came, like a hand trying to grab onto something to save us from the unknown where we run.

I ask him if even he knows what he's talking about. We stop and he asks me if I've ever seen the lights. Our eyes are blank. He asks me again, have I ever seen the lights. I have seen lights. There are lights at the house and lights on the bridge, but those lights are on at night. It is day time, the only light is from the sun, be it hidden beneath the gray. If any of those are the lights he is referring to, then I have seen them. He is disappointed, we run again.

Down the street, they plowed early. Grits of rock salt and sand crunch under our boots as we run to God knows where. People are joining us. It's big, he says, it's so, so big. My face burns its own fire to keep me warm as my living smoke rises from my lungs, and mingles with everybody else's cloudy breath and words. The town circle someone says. Something big.

We turn bends down the street. Bare branches clap in excitement while the wind whistles solemnly. We're on the main road now, and the anticipation is our only momentum. I smell something that doesn't belong in early December air. It mingles with the scent of cold and car exhaust. It burns in the air, it burns hard.

It is the big tree in the town circle, the old evergreen. That's what he means, the lights.

It's a town tradition. They all know it. When Thanksgiving's over, the focus turns from the turkeys to the tree. People have made a family ritual of coming to watch municipal grounds crew come marching in with boxes and ladders to decorate the tree. The men on ladders drape all the lights, the vine-like cords that clutch the poignant glass bulbs, on bough after bough, winding all the way down. And the finishing touch, the star on top, a mass of all the golden lights you could imagine. The tree turns on every night, brightening up the town square. It stands a colossus, black and glistening with beads of pinks and reds and blues and oranges.

Last night the lights went on, still lit through the storm. And when I see the tree, I see the story unfold like a restless dream. The tree has burnt and fallen in its own ashes, yellowed needles, and bits of broken glass. I feel my heart quicken as I think of the lights exploding in an orange blue sparkle from the surge in the snow.

They live thinking each day will be exactly as it ever was, so there is no point of wanting change. Today there is change. Today should have been a dream. Today a dream, a nightmare came true. People die, you bury them and you move on. Dreams come true, you can't keep going on. It changes the plan, it changes your life. You think you know what you want out of life. It seems so out of reach, eventually you may just ignore it. But if it all comes true, it isn't what you wanted. It isn't what you wanted at all.

Today I saw the lights in broken glitters on the snow, creamed with ash. I saw the lights as everyone else, I was just the only one who believed it.

Somebody quietly asks about what they are going to do. What are we going to do? You have so many options that you just don't realize. The stupidity of this town with no dreams and no lights. I saw their dream, I saw their light. I turn to leave. He thinks that I'm upset, and I'm not. I just have dreams too big for the moment.

I walk down the main road, sinking up to my ankles in pale brown slush along the shoulders. The bluish smell of burnt electricity still hovers. My boots are soaking through, my socks tinge with the pain of cold. It is three miles up the road and nobody knows where I am.

It is mid-morning, and I doubt it's snowed back home. I saw the lights today. But I thought they were beautiful.

I walk along the highway, the busy two-lane road of this small town. Cars drive by and nobody stops, yet I feel like everyone behind the wheels and windows of every vehicle is staring at me, their brows knotted, mouths perplexed.

I inhale the frost and the exhaust from the cars. The burnt smell can't travel this far, but it still feels like its there, a wrong ingredient for a winter day.

Slipping my mitten hands--each only a thick nub with a thumb--into the pockets of my coat. I lean my head back and cringe my eyes, trying to somehow squeeze what I've just witnessed out of my memory. My stomach suddenly pulses with a sick, painful feeling of homesickness that rises up into my throat, burning and asphyxiating. I want to go home.