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The light comes in

by Stéphanie Chasseloup

The light comes in.

I only believe in what I see, in matter.
This is my limit.

Among the shelves in my bookshop on a summer day I met Daniela. I immediately felt attracted to her like a moth is attracted to light.
Her words were slow and bright. I also met Flavio, a refined thinker, disciplined and pragmatic, the son of a bookseller. How weird, I thought, that he has married her, a miniature cataclysm.
They live in the Netherlands, in a village whose name I can’t even pronounce.

We have been writing to each other ever since. A correspondence of such deep affection. Every time I have something at hand that makes me think of them, I save it until our next meeting.
And I do meet them, one year later. He’s too thin and there are too many thoughts among his curls. He holds an envelope in his hands with all the things they have saved thinking of me. There’s also a red bookmark, the invitation to their wedding, celebrated the year we met.
She walks away to have a coffee. He quickly whispers to me, “She doesn’t know that I’m telling you this, but she’s dying, the disease is everywhere, at the hospital they treat her like a ghost, there is no medical explanation for her being here.”

I’m not going to tell you how every single neuron of mine exploded. This is not my story.
Shortly afterwards, she knows that I know.

She tells me that she lives in a different way, she meditates, she has lit her circles of light, she is her own miracle every day.

Now.
I believe in what I see.
I see what I believe in.

The limit is broken. The light comes in.