He rose from the dreams of children—
those who saw dragons in playgrounds,
who spun springs into soaring flight,
chipped paint into shimmering scales.

Tarnok, the emerald guardian,
watched over the Kingdom of Once,
where slides gleamed like moonlit streams,
and swings hummed with the wind’s low hymn.

He thrived on laughter,
on the pulse of racing feet,
on shrieks of joy
that set his metal wings quivering.

But silence crept in.
The kingdom withered, its colors dulled.
Vines coiled tight,
and Tarnok stilled, his smile crumbling to rust.
Years passed.

The bark chips grew cold.
The air forgot its shimmer.

Then—Arthur.
A boy with quiet eyes,
heart humming with wonder’s faint song,
seeking the ghost of forgotten games.
He climbed Tarnok,
blind to the myth,
drawn by a spark in the rusted frame.

His laugh broke the air.
And the world remembered.
Vines bloomed, heavy with color.
The swings stirred, creaking awake.
The slide burned like polished steel.

Tarnok rocked,
not from wind,
but from joy reborn.
And deep beneath the playground,
the Kingdom of Once stirred,
its heartbeat pulsing with Arthur’s laugh,
as Tarnok’s wings dreamed of flight.

There was a girl
who carried a lantern.
Small, yet unyielding,
its glow defied the dark,
tracing the path
her feet chose.

There was a warrior
returned from battle.
A fracture split his crown.
Through the wound
a shadow leaned—
silent, then whispering:
The lantern must be mine.
Without it, I am broken.

The girl said no.
She did not scream.
She did not flee.
Her silence was a shield.
She drew the lantern close
and stepped aside.

The shadow could not endure refusal.
It reached for steel.
In the marketplace of morning—
where bread was weighed,
where laughter was traded—
the shadow struck.
The lantern fell.
Its flame trembled,
and went out.

But the world was not silent.
A tide of voices rose.
Countless.
Insistent.
Inked in sorrow upon paper.
A chorus swelling against stone.
They pleaded for mercy.
They begged for the fracture
to be understood.
They named the shadow.
They cried to distant halls of power.
But still the walls did not bend.

The warrior was taken.
The shadow fell with him.
The rope spoke
where mercy would not,
its verdict unbending as oak.

Yet the lantern—
though broken—
was not lost.
It flickers still
in the courage of those who refuse,
in the quiet voices
that rise against injustice,
in the memory of the tide that came,
even when the world turned away.

Remember the girl with the lantern.

For every fracture casts a shadow.
Every shadow seeks what is not its own.
Yet still the lantern glows—
frail as breath,
fierce as memory—
enduring.

She raises her arm,
not in benediction,
but in the small rebellion
of capturing her own face
beneath the marbled theater of eternity.

Above her,
angels spill from drapery like loosened thoughts,
a pope extends his stone hand
in blessing or command—
who can tell anymore?
Even in stillness,
the gesture feels suspect.

The air is thick with centuries:
candles gutter,
gold leaf shimmers,
and the hush is not holy
but heavy—
like a silence trained to hide its wounds.

Faith was meant to be a door flung open,
a table where all might gather.
Instead, it became
a locked room,
its key guarded by men
who mistook power for grace,
and covered their sins
with vestments too ornate to touch.

Her phone, black as a psalm unsung,
catches her face where the saints cannot.
No angel stoops to cradle her doubt;
no Madonna reaches from the niche.
The statues are beautiful, yes—
but beauty can also be complicit,
a veil too finely woven
to let the cries through.

How many voices pressed
against these walls in vain?
How many children prayed
to be seen,
only to be folded into the architecture of silence?

She presses the shutter.
It is not worship,
but witness—
a fragile liturgy of selfhood
against a cathedral that claims eternity.

And in that instant,
her image lingers among the saints,
her living skin
a testament more holy
than marble ever dared to be.

They sit in dark suits,
the silence pressed
into their shoulders.

Around them,
cups half-drained,
water trembling
with a borrowed light—
even the sun
hesitates to intrude.

One raises his hand,
not in greeting,
but as if to measure
the air’s heaviness,
the burden of time
that does not move.

Behind them,
the chapel breathes—
hushed prayers
seep through stone,
the living speak of loss
while laughter drifts
from another table,
careless, unbroken.

This is their rhythm:
sip bitterness,
straighten ties,
hold vigil for the living
so the dead may be carried
with dignity.

But here, in the pause,
they are only men—
hands wrapped around coffee,
faces turned toward
the ordinary,
waiting with the weight
that never leaves them.

The suitcase waits beside him,
its wheels whispering to the ground.
Beneath his coat the dog curls,
a lantern of warmth,
a small fire pressed against his ribs.

The years have softened the noise of living—
once brass and thunder,
now breath and hush.
And in that hush he finds a song:
not bright,
not fleeting,
but steady as a heartbeat.

Joy no longer strikes like lightning.
It lingers,
folded into the weight of a coat,
the patience of standing still,
the trust of a creature that leans into his chest.

Happiness is an ember,
glowing without demand,
refusing to fade.
Here, at the bus stop,
he is not waiting for tomorrow.
He is waiting for nothing at all,
content to be warmed
by what stays.