Life. Bulbs.

First blackness and calm, then crackling and pulsing alertness.



Everyone in the circle is awake and glowing. There are hundreds of them, six or seven different outlooks, but all connected for the same bright purpose.



They don’t live on their own. It’s the shared energy that animates them. The same force that propels thoughts, movement and light. It gives life to them, maybe to all of us.



One of them stops. It no longer participates in the group. Its family stops and stares, still glowing and feeling. What can they do for this one?



Evolution of their kind allows them to live and work all together on the same wavelength, and to continue even when one of them departs. Earlier families would live until their weakest member passed. Then they would all die together, as one.



Now they try to recover their own. They make a fuss. They crackle and hiss. None wants to believe there is no way back for one.



But there isn’t a way. Sometimes darkness is all there is.



So they go on beaming and gleaming, until it’s time to sleep, and the switch is flipped.