Stephen King once wrote, “time takes it all, whether you want it to or not. Time takes it all; time bears it away, and in the end, there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness…and sometimes we lose them there again.”

It is true, indeed, what he said about time. Time…such a powerful thing. I don’t think any of us really realise that. We never stop to think … how little we have of it, how incredibly fast it goes, how much it can take away from us in just a couple of moments. And like King said, in the end, time swallows us all- into its endless abyss of darkness. No matter how much we care, or how big our hearts or how tough we think we are. No matter how hard we try to push it away from our minds and our lives, as if we could scare it away. As if we could escape from it. As if, somehow, we could stray safely away from the ever teetering edge between the end of time and infinity… Yes, in that, King is right. In the end, time takes all.

And sometimes we do find others in that darkness- whether we know them or not, whether we care and have love for them or despise them, whether we choose to stride on the same path as them or not- while others are lost forever in time. Sometimes we are able to grab onto the people we find, sometimes we can hold onto them tightly and struggle to make it through the dark together instead of alone. Once more, in that, King was irrefutably correct.


But I truly believe there is something that he missed. Whether intentionally or not- as he is, of course, a horror writer- King never mentioned that there is something else in that darkness besides the lost. Besides the forgotten, the sinned, the desolate. That something may be deep, deep inside the dark, the shadows- perhaps even at the floor of the bottomless hole- but it is there. It is there, when time has dared to seize everything, has silently slipped us away along with life and meaning and bliss. It is there to give us courage- the one thing we need to obtain in order to accept the influence of time, and yet exist through the darkness without fear, regret and pain. It is there to give us hope. It is a light. One lone, incandescent light, veiled in the dark that can lead us away…whether in the form of a person, an emotion, an object, it will always be there, waiting. And I suppose whether a person is able to uncover that light…whether they are able to find it in themselves to accept times path, yet still crave hope and love and happiness… that is what determines, ultimately, if they will float back to the surface. For me, it was seeing that family at the airport. The truly happy, wonderful yet not perfect family that made me realise, well, I want that. And I want Lucas to be a part of that family, my family, for ever. Yes, seeing them was my light, my epitome, that lead me to my destiny. That lead me to my happiness. And though I recognize and honour Stephen King’s passage of time and inevitable darkness, I really do believe that not all is lost during those seemingly impenetrable moments of darkness. I believe that if we search inside ourselves, search past everything else until we get to the innermost realms of our muddled hearts, we can all discover that one, pure light that leads to realization. The ecstasy of resurfacing. That one light that leads to all the hope and faith we could ever ask for. That one light that gives us a chance to truly and completely live life.