Where the Light Leads

She stumbled through the club, through the mass of dancing bodies. Her ears were deaf with music that shook her whole body. Her limbs felt sluggish, so sluggish because of all the drinks she'd downed to help her forget who she was.

But no matter where she went, her life followed.

And then there were the lights. Red, blue, purple, green, shining down on them all.

She looked up. Looked straight into the green light as if it could save her, as if it could bring her out of this body, this life, and transport her into a better world. A fairer world. A world of peace, not this hellhole in the shabby suburbs of New York.

A sudden pain shot up her back; she hit the wall without realizing. As she tried to tune into the pain to make it pass away quicker, she could feel her legs give out under her. The last thing she saw before she collapsed to the floor was the green light encircling her with its glow. The promise of a life that would never come.

“Hey, are you okay?” He gently shook her.

She opened her eyes. She didn’t see him at first – the light was still dancing before her. When she finally managed to focus on his face, she saw warm eyes. Not much else. The darkness of the club swallowed them whole, their faces lost, their identities meshed into one crowd.

But the warm eyes were an anchor. They brought her back into reality with a sharp swish, and there she was, nodding, repeating she was fine, pretending fine meant what it actually promised when it was really just another empty word.

“Let’s take you outside for some fresh air,” he said and helped her stand up. She swayed and he offered his arm. As they fought their way through the crowd, she kept holding onto this arm as if the ground underneath her vanished if that stranger wasn’t there to support her.

The fresh autumn air hit her in the face. Her ears felt muted. Come to think of it, everything was kind of muted. Numb. Cold. Dull.

“You looked sick back there, are you sure you’re okay? I can call you a taxi.”

She meant to tell him she didn’t need his help. She meant to say she could do it all on her own. But the truth was too evident for her to ignore it. She was helpless, too drunk to be able to do anything, and so she just nodded.

She didn’t remember the drive home. Didn’t remember him helping her up the stairs to her apartment building. Later, she had a vague sense he must have put her to bed, but she was never quite sure if it had actually happened.

When she woke up, he was gone. A dream followed by a horrible hangover, that’s how she thought of it, how she told it to her friends.

But deep down, that green light stayed within her. When she closed her eyes sometimes, she could still see it – while riding the subway, reading a book, sitting at school, watching the night sky. A green light glowing down on her, promising her it would all be okay one day.

Somehow, the green light and a stranger’s kindness became a part of her.

When she shut her eyes before she fell asleep and thought about the life she wished for, green occasionally fluttered in front of her, like the wings of a butterfly flying far away. Intangible. But sprinkling hope in its wake, a tiny bit of hope that she held on to so tight her whole being ached with the effort.

Absent father, alcoholic mother, poor neighbourhood. The whole package. The universe dealt her those cards with a certainty she couldn’t shake – she was one of the lost ones. The ones who grew up to be set for failure, who followed their parents in their tracks no matter how much they hated themselves for it, who grasped for straws and somehow never reached high enough to grab them, clutch them in their first and pull them towards them.

But she could pull. She could pull and push and jump and sprint with a goal in mind, a goal expanding with each day she breathed. A better life. A life she dreamed up in that moment between being awake and fainting, in that gap of mindlessness, in the glow of the green light. She didn’t know what it was – the light, or the stranger who helped her up and drove her home without breaking her.

Probably both. Giving her hope, fluttering deep inside her gut every time she walked into school, every time she saw those skyscrapers reaching high in the distance, every time she watched the disarray and chaos around her and realized she had the power to get out. To change her fate.

She didn’t know this before, didn’t fully recognize her capability to become the master of her own destiny. She followed the tracks that were built for her by her ancestors, haphazardly and without care, and she accepted the fate she thought was assigned to her.

No longer.

She would accept that plan no longer.

She would rebel. And she would burn the whole ugly world with her if it meant getting out of this hellhole.

And so she worked. She studied. She fought, each minute of every day, and she daydreamed about the life she hoped she deserved – a life with no tasteless pot noodles for dinner, no house you’re ashamed to invite your friends over to because of all the trash, no people telling her they loved her right after calling her the worst insults, humiliating her, and breaking her over and over again.

Slowly but steadily, she grew in strength. In confidence. She refused to let them break her. She would bend to be able to survive for a while longer, but she wouldn’t break, not anymore.

She would fight for herself.

Six years later, she had a successful business, a loving partner and all the comforts of a life she once only dreamed of. Sometimes, she almost forgot about what she’d had to do to get here – memory is like that. Memories grow foggier by the minute, and if you don’t remind yourself often enough, you’re bound to forget.

But each time she found herself on the edge of that cliff, a green light danced in front of her eyelids and she recalled that moment in that club. That promise to herself, stronger than anything she’d ever felt.

And she remembered.

Two years later, she was walking down the street in the cold autumn air. She looked at her watch, tipsiness making her vision a little tilted, and saw it was nearing midnight. She passed restaurants, shopping malls, clubs, their neon lights glowing in the night, reminding everyone some people didn’t sleep at night. They lived. In whichever way they wanted.

As she passed a side street, something caught her eye. She stopped in her tracks and walked a few steps back.

There she was. A girl, sitting on the dirty ground with her coat wrapped around her like a shield, her mascara running down her face. When she crutched beside her and shook her slightly, the girl’s eyes opened and looked around in hazy confusion.

“Hey,” she said quietly, “I’ve just found you here. Are you okay? Can you talk?”

A few blinks. Then she said, “Y-yes.”

“Alright. Let’s get you up, I’ll call us a taxi.” When they stood up and stumbled out of the shadows of the side street, she saw it.

A green light. Shining down on them from a nearby neon light, setting their faces ablaze with green. And that’s when she smiled.

It all circled back to that moment. She sat in the taxi with the young girl, leading her home, and couldn’t stop feeling like everything came full circle, like that moment in that club when she was seventeen years old defined her life, a moment stuck in eternity, a light that meant nothing to everyone else but meant everything to her.

She helped her up the stairs. She opened the door of her flat. Put her down to sleep, locked her in and dropped the keys in through the mailbox in the door.

Then she went home, a green butterfly leading her to where hope always leads.

A better world.