As the light dwindled, the candle finally extinguishing itself in its wax, Lucifer arose on weak legs. He gripped his cane firmly and marched determinedly to the door. It creaked open, the hinges complaining loudly. Lucifer felt his way, partly with his feet, mostly with his cane. He shuffled slowly away from his home. He looked back, able to just barely make out the outline of it as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He had lived too long in that cement prison; he would never return there.
Lucifer hobbled through the familiar streets of his childhood. The out lines of deserted buildings towered on either side of him. He liked the buildings. They were like him; alone, abandoned, old, falling apart. He felt a kinship with them. They were his friends, his companions.
He spoke to them as he made his way.
“Hello, friends,” he said to them, his thin voice carrying in the stillness. “You are looking better than I, but that is as it always is, my friends.” A lie, as he couldn’t see anything but their faint outlines in the blackness, but it made him feel a bit better. He mumbled incoherently to himself and the buildings as he made his way to his field.
Once the broad expanse had been filled with green grass and bright flowers, edged with tall, proud pines and dancing aspens. They had all reached tall toward sunlight that was now just a memory.
Lucifer stood in the center of the treeless, grassless, dirt expanse. His weak legs buckled under him and he crumpled to the ground. His forehead touched the gritty earth, a tear finding a home in it. At an earlier time in his life, Lucifer would have been ashamed to be seen lying on the ground, crying. But now there was no one to see him. He was not ashamed.
Lucifer felt a tickle on his wet cheek. He lifted his dirty, tear-streaked face to find himself face-to-face with an enchanting silver-green sprig of grass. A gasp escaped Lucifer’s lips. It danced in a slight breeze only it felt. Shocked that he could see it so clearly in the blackness, Lucifer looked about him. His eyes grew wide as he beheld a sight he had not seen in many years.
Suddenly invigorated, the frail old man leaped to his feet. He opened his arms wide to the newcomer.
“My dear old friend,” He exclaimed. He felt a tug at his lips. What was this? They pulled back. Oh! How wonderful it felt to smile, and to have reason to! He laughed.
In the faint light that now shone over the earth, an old man danced a wild dance, welcoming the new life and his newly returned lunar companion.
