The scribe across the hall asked me today why I never light more than one candle.

I told him I prefer the dark.

He laughed and said I was superstitious. He meant it as a joke, I think. A gentle ribbing between scribes. But I saw something in his eyes — a flicker of genuine curiosity beneath the laughter. He wanted to understand. He just didn't know how to ask without making it sound like mockery.

I didn't correct him. Let him believe it's superstition. It's easier that way.

The truth is harder to explain. The truth is that the light shows me what I've written — every flaw, every hesitation, every word that should have been struck but wasn't. It reveals my mistakes with merciless clarity. The dark, on the other hand, shows me what I'm about to write. It invites possibility. It doesn't judge. It simply waits.

One reveals the past. The other invites the future.

I thought about telling him this. I thought about explaining the difference between what is seen and what is felt. But I didn't. He's young. He's still bright-eyed, still eager, still untouched by the things that I've seen. I remember being that way once. I remember believing that light was always good, that more light meant more truth.

I know better now.

I sat there, candle flickering, cat watching from the windowsill, and I simply said: "Perhaps I am superstitious."

He smiled, nodded, and returned to his cubicle.

I wonder if he'll remember this conversation in the years to come. I wonder if he'll understand, eventually, that I wasn't being coy. I was being kind.

Some lessons don't need to be learned through experience.

Some lessons can simply be accepted.

But I suspect he'll learn them the hard way. The way I did. The way we all do.