The One Who Gave Lights

The One Who Gave Lights - Pencil/paper – 5 x 7 in.

In English we say, “She gives birth.” I prefer the expression in Spanish: Ella da a luz.“She gives a light.” The woman in this drawing gave ten lights.

I'm not fond of this image because I drew her fingers too long. At that time, she could not tell the difference between what we call “past,” “present” and “future.” So perhaps in the drawing she was only counting the number of lights she had given.

One night, after drawing her, I traveled by train far into the North. The rocking motion of the cars slowly eased and we came to a stop. The engines panted, out of breath. We were alone in the middle of desolation: no trees, no animals, no hills, not even a star. Only a desert without end, the color of cement.

A conductor appeared, dressed like an admiral with epaulets and medals that glittered on his uniform. “This is the last stop,” he explained to a young woman with a baby in her arms, the only other passenger. “We have no tickets,” she pleaded. “On this train,” he assured her, “no one needs tickets.” She and the baby followed the glow of his flashlight to the end of the coach.

They disappeared into a dark house. At first I thought it was my brother Tim's home on an island in the North, and so I began to look for him. In one room someone was asleep, but it wasn’t him nor anyone else I knew. I wandered around in the dark, then opened another door into a room full of light.

Abruptly, a figure wearing a fedora and a long coat brushed past me. Its face was metallic, like pewter, but erased: no eyes, no mouth, no nose, no gender. Beyond its shoulder a bed appeared. A woman was sleeping. She woke up and smiled at me, then went back to sleep.

A telephone was ringing. I stumbled through the house searching for it. Then half-asleep, I found it next to me. It was my sister Jane, crying. She told me that our giver of light was still with us, but now only in our memories.

More images on my website: johnmichaelkeating.com