The Spark Before the Dark

We are taught to fear the dark, to fill it with noise and fire. We strike matches and watch them burn, hoping the light will hold back the edges of the room. But the fire is brief. It consumes itself to exist. There is a particular kind of loneliness in watching a flame—the way it dances, frantic and hungry, oblivious to the cold waiting just beyond its reach. We look for ourselves in the glow, searching for a reflection that isn’t there. We want to believe that if we hold the light long enough, we might finally see the shape of what we are missing. But the fire only makes the shadows deeper, sharper, more permanent. We stand at the threshold, holding our small, flickering warmth, waiting for the smoke to clear. What remains when the last spark finally dies?

Nirupam Roy has captured this fleeting tension in the image titled In the Festival of Lights. Does the light reveal the child, or does it only hide the night?