Fundamentally Good

Light Me Up

Day 21 Cloytober: Spark

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2 years ago

"Appa, who are they?" Dae Reul peered up curiously at her father when they finished paying their respect to his friends.

Squatting in front of his four-year-old, Officer Kim cupped Dae Reul's cheeks gently as he smiled sadly at her.

"People that appa failed to save. They were my friends."

That guilt over the tragedy of that snowy night still haunted him to this day. It frustrated the man greatly that the one case he couldn't solve was also the very case that held the most weight in his heart.

They had been happy, but that happiness had been casually stripped away from them so cruelly, that his heart still hurt for them whenever he thought about their deaths.

That case brought him back to Seoul, for that was where the tracks led him, but years later, the case remained unsolvable. Officer Kim was simply lucky that his family was understanding through it all, even when he decided to uproot their lives from the homely neighbourhood they had moved to in Switzerland.

Little Dae Reul peered at her father with wide, innocent eyes, sensing the sadness within her normally jolly father's eyes. Not knowing how else to comfort him, the little girl decided to get to know his friends instead.

"Ri Jeong Hyeok."

Walking up to each of the gravestones, Dae Reul laid her tiny hand upon the smooth, cold material, reading their names right off the engraved letterings.

"Yoon Seri."

Officer Kim's eyes were misty with tears when Dae Reul stroked the stone gently, smiling with her usual child-like joy. Finally, Dae Reul stopped at the last gravestone, nestled between the two parent stones.

"Ri Haneul."

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In the present

Sparks.

They are always apparent in our lives if we look hard enough.

We need sparks to kindle a fire – those dancing ambers sprung from a mere energetic spark.

We need sparks to ignite a moment – to add colour to what would have otherwise been a dull, stagnant time of our lives.

Those points of time in our lives that excited us, touched us and understood us, were all moments in time where that special spark was present, for it wasn't every day a human allowed themselves to be free.

Most importantly, we need sparks to kindle a memory, a time in our lives where we soared beyond what we thought was possible – a time that became a part of who we are; a good person.

In an angel's life, those sparks came from a child's first laugh, an elder's last smile, a lion's purr, and a million other things that made life so much more enjoyable to innocence personified.

In a devil's life, those sparks came from a child's first scream, a fire ignited, an elder's last breath, a lion's roar, and a million other things that made life so much more invigorating to mischief personified.

Yet, nothing about the mini sparks that they have experienced during their time in the afterlife could prepare Ri Jeong Hyeok nor Yoon Seri for the overwhelming bombardment of memories sparked by the final piece of their journey in the human world.

Damn did that hit them with a vengeance.

Seri was the first to buckle from the weight of the memories when she saw their names on the gravestones. Ri Jeong Hyeok had caught her before she could hit the ground, worried when she started hyperventilating over her human memories. During that short span of time, the angel gasped when he saw their names too, and he only had a millisecond to process that possibility before the memories struck him too.