“Where does the light goes?”

“Where does the light goes?” she asks. “Where does it goes?”

No one really knows, we say. It’s all packets and photons and waves. But, this we know. It’s always there, even when it’s dark, because the darkness is no match for light. Light swallows the dark, and the dark will never triumph over light.

She presses her forehead against the glass, and looks out at the solid sheet of afternoon clouds. She asks, “It still a sunny day? It not night?”

It’s called daylight, we say. Even when we can’t see sunshine, we’re still wrapped in light.

It’s almost sunset. The sphere of light is edged in coral, sliding down behind the ridge just across the highways. “Where da sun go now? It move in da sky?” she asks.

It is we who move, we say. The light is always there, an anchor. We move around it, our faces to it, our eyes fixed on it.

“Leave my farkle [sparkle] light on?” she asks. “Leave it on?”

We have to turn it out, we say. It’s time to sleep. It’s dark, but just for a little while. The morning will come. And it will be light again.