A Year of Stories

The Three Things I Know For Certain

There are only three things in this world that I know for certain.

That unquestionable, cosmic, stitched to the back of your eyes kind of certain.

I'm telling them to you not because I think it will help you understand, but because I think it will help me, and right now – that's enough.

So listen or don't, in the end, it doesn't make a difference.

1.

The first is that the sun always shines.

No matter how dark the dawn, no matter how deep the despair – if you could walk this planet from end to end, cross the oceans and the seas, somewhere on your journey you would find that ball of fire burning overhead.

Even now, right this instant, there is somewhere out there filled with light.

There always is.

We fear the dark because we fail to realize that if the night never found us – day would never find them. We wallow not because there is some true horror hiding in the black, but because we're selfish.

Because we don't understand that twilight needs time to stretch its wings, that when the light fades, shifts to where it's needed more – it's only to leave shadow a chance to do its work.

2.

The second is that there is no real evil.

Stare into the chest of a villain, and you will find the beating heart of a virtuous man.

We all do what we must, what we think we must.

We make choices, we cause hurts, we leave bodies beaten and broken in our wake. We do this for a cause that we feel, we know, is true.

There are millions of corpses on all sides fertilizing the fields of these truths.

You and I, if we could see each others souls – which do you think would be cast in shadow? Which in light?

If you ask me, I think the sun left us both a long time ago.

3.

The final thing is that death doesn't play favorites.

I would have killed you, not out of hatred, but out of need.

I would have done it without batting an eye, or losing a moments sleep.

Why? Because you are my enemy, even if I don't know your name.

Not because you are evil, not because your truth is worse than my own. It would have been enough that my cause demands it, my virtue demands it, and I see myself as a virtuous man.

The fact that our positions are reversed, means only that you must do the same; that you must plunge the knife into my chest, and leave me here with my truth.

I see the fear in your eyes, but I beg you to let your heart be still.

You'll be doing me a favor. Remember, the sun must always shine, so if I wait here long enough, it might even find me again.