Forest Light

There is a village at the edge of a forest that never fully goes dark.
Not because it is bright.
But because of the lantern bearers.
They are not chosen.
They are not trained.
They are not appointed.
They are simply the ones who notice when light goes out.
When a widow stops opening her shutters.
When a teenager walks too long after sunset.
When an old man forgets the way back from the orchard.
When a woman sits too still at her own kitchen table.
Lantern bearers feel it.
Not like a sound.
More like pressure.
A hinge shifting in the air.
And they go.
They do not knock loudly.
They do not preach.
They do not fix.
They sit.
They bring a lantern.
Sometimes they speak softly.
Sometimes they say nothing at all.
Sometimes they just adjust the wick so the flame burns steadier.
The lantern bearers understand something others don’t:
Darkness is not the enemy.
Isolation is.
So they stand in doorways.
On porches.
At the edge of beds.
Beside hospital chairs.
Near children afraid of thunder.
They do not carry torches that blind.
Only lanterns that warm.
And here is the part no one says aloud:
Lantern bearers do not generate light from nowhere.
Their lanterns are lit from coals they have kept alive inside themselves.
Some of them once walked through deep woods alone.
Some of them once mistook wolves for shepherds.
Some of them once burned too brightly and nearly went out.
They learned how to tend a flame without letting it consume them.
That is the difference.
The villagers sometimes call them strong.
But strength is not the right word.
They are steady.
And one day, when a lantern bearer grows tired, another notices.
A younger woman sees the flicker in her hands.
She does not say, “You must keep going.”
She says, “Let me hold it for a while.”
And the older woman sits.
For the first time in years.
And rests in someone else’s glow.
Lantern bearers are not heroes.
They are not martyrs.
They are simply people who refuse to let the dark swallow someone alone.
And sometimes — when they finally sit still long enough — they discover something surprising.
The lantern they were carrying
was always meant to light their own doorway too.
You have carried lanterns for a very long time.
It is allowed now
for you to sit in the light.