In a dark room, a tiny flame is enough to live by. All it takes to extinguish it is a momentary deprivation of oxygen. Snuff out, they call this. Here is why it matters: to carry these little lights out: small, steady, slow moving, especially into nameless places that look like nothing. None of us, not one, can light ourselves. This is what it means to keep watch.
What are you doing?
Keeping.
Keeping what?
Watch.
For?
Life.
What is the point?
The living.
And when I can’t see it?
Still, the living.
I can’t today.
Then wait with the dead.
And do what?
Wait. Keep the candles lit.