The Last Lantern...

 Maybe I would be forgotten. Maybe my stories would never be read. But for now, the lantern still burned, and that was enough.

Dear Readers,

They say a writer’s legacy lives on in their words. I’ve clung to that belief like a life raft, imagining that someday, someone might stumble across my stories and feel even a whisper of what I poured into them. But deep down, I know the truth: not every story finds a reader, and not every writer is remembered.

I wasn’t exceptional. My words didn’t spark revolutions or inspire the masses. They were quiet, like me. They were stories of loss, yearning, and fragile connections that fade with time. I wrote them because, they felt true, because they were all I had to offer. Each was a different and unique piece of my broken Life, Yet the world didn’t need my truths.

Still, I wrote. Not because I thought it would change anything, but because it was the only way I knew to make sense of the ache inside me. My words became my companions; the pages, my confidants. I told them everything: my fears, my regrets, and my fleeting hopes that one day, someone might care enough to look deeper.

But the world kept moving, faster than I could keep up. The people I loved drifted away, lost in their own lives. The letters I wrote went unanswered, the calls unreturned. Even the few who had once encouraged me stopped asking about my work.

In the evenings, I would light a lantern and place it by the window. It wasn’t for anyone else it was for me, a small comfort in the dark. I imagined the light reaching out into the night, a quiet declaration: I am here. I exist.

One night, as the rain tapped softly against the glass, I sat at my desk, staring at the empty page. My hands trembled, not from exhaustion but from the weight of knowing that this story might be my last. What was the point of writing if no one would read it? If my words, my life, would vanish as though they had never been?

But then, I thought about the lantern. Its flame wasn’t meant to be seen by the world. It burned because it could because that was its purpose. Perhaps my stories were the same. They didn’t need to be read to matter. They mattered because they were mine.

As the night wore on, I wrote. I wrote about a man who lit a lantern every evening, hoping it would guide someone to him. I wrote about the weight of silence, the ache of being unseen, and the quiet beauty of creating something for no one but yourself.

When I finished, I folded the pages neatly and placed them in a drawer with the others. The lantern’s flame flickered, then steadied. I watched it for a long time, feeling both the weight and the lightness of letting go.

Maybe I would be forgotten. Maybe my stories would never be read. But for now, the lantern still burned, and that was enough.

Jacob M