She stayed in the small room for a good hour. She walked forward, opening the door. The janitors closet brought painful memories, memories of Sarah's grandmother.
Her grandmother worked long hours. She provided what her mother could not. She sacrificed the softness of her hands. She sacrificed the early mornings. She invested in Sarah, plowing deep into her heart with her actions, rooted in love.
Sarah remembered. She remembered the voice of her grandmother singing, "This little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine" while Sarah fell fast asleep. She saw her sweep the streets of the shopping center.
She wondered how MLK could write such eloquent words about street sweeping. The work eroded her grandmother—until she could hold the line no more.
She remembered the birth of Jonathan, how her grandmother told her these poignant words on her hospital bed, "Shine your light for him. You're one of the few he'll ever know."
Sarah opened the closet—determined. She walked sober-minded. She spoke words deep in the recesses of her heart. She knelt on the ground and prayed, "God, I don't know how, but I repent of my past. Give me the strength to protect Jonathan. Give me strength because I have nothing left."
Suddenly, a bright light shone in the building, like a sun eclipses the moon. She eclipsed the sun. Sarah eclipsed the circumstances and found her brother Jonathan sitting against the school fridge: a brick broke the lock. She saw the sky outside of the broken school.
She grit her teeth and descended next to him.
She tapped his shoulder. He moved a little, but he didn't wake up. She tried punching him, but he still didn't move. She wanted to yell, but she saw the tear stains on his mouth and the crumbs from sandwiches the school prepared to serve for lunch that day.
She knew she needed a plan, but the thought pushed her to the brink of collapse. She saw his pain in the way by which he fell asleep out of exhaustion.
The noon sun stood still in the sky. The rays poured into the school while the clouds parted. The rain stopped, and the last of the raindrops fell onto the ground beneath a sunlit sky.
She woke her little brother up.
She moved his face with her whole body. She stood in the air at a height of five inches. The sun parted the clouds, but the cause was not the sun. The clouds made way for the sun, but the clouds had not the forethought to make way for the sun, to let light shine on the siblings, but let there be light in this story. Let there be hope in the world.
Jonathan stared warily at his sister, though he never grew to recognize her. He knew not what sort of being would shine. He knew not what sort of being would give off a bright fluorescent glow yet carry the skin of his ancestors. She stood before him as a fairy, but she did not look like a fairy. He assumed fairies were always white. I mean, Bisney doesn't sell black fairy merchandise at Bisney world, now do they. The sun rays descended onto the middle school boy's hands touching the fairy's hands. She comforted him with her existence. He thought of his sister. He couldn't make out the face of the fairy, but he thought, 'She's kind.' Her heart soothed his fear. Her words melted his heart, though he couldn't understand a word she said.
Tinkle, tinkle. Tinkle, tinkle. Were the sounds he heard.
"I'm here. I'm here," she said.
He waited for English to resound, but he heard nothing. But, it didn't matter.
It didn't matter that he couldn't understand her. She saw a spark glint in his eye. He tried to talk to her, but he didn't know how to say what he wanted. He feared that he might scare off the creature he found comfort in beneath the rays of the sun. She saw all of this, and deep in her heart, she feared. She wanted to understand the world she awoke to beneath the dark clouds, where she rushed to aid her brother.
She found comfort in the trust he showed when he touched her hands with his. The world changed, but hope always comes in the morning. Through the uncertainty. Through the pain. Through the sorrow.
The journey began in the morning, the siblings in the void.