Mayes Kitteridge smiled at the foggy halos crowning the street lights that lit his way home. He knew exactly how the light was made. The radiating neutrons in his reactor, the water it turned to steam, and the steam he turned to electricity and provided to the city. The power pulsed through the cables within the city’s infrastructure, into the lamp post, through the filament of the bulb and into the city streets. If electricity was the blood of the city that allowed it to live, then Kitteridge was its heart. He placed his hand on the next lamp as he passed. It was the touch of pride. This is my light, he thought. This is my light, and it is good.
His guard fell in that moment, and he felt tired. It was the first time he permitted himself to feel anything all day. He‘d gone days scarcely sleeping, only catching a few hours in the confusion when late night meets early morning. It may have been longer: months; maybe weeks. They all blended together. Some nights, he‘d fail to make his way home, working in his office throughout the night. Sleep did not matter; it was a luxury. Exhaustion did not matter; for Kitteridge forgot to feel tired. All that mattered was the battle before him – the battle he fought in some form his entire life – to keep his power plant. The fight to which he always thought, I‘ll rest once I‘ve won.
The night felt cool as it always did. The season did not matter, Kitteridge never found weather to be suffering. In his life, he never experienced a moment when the air did not feel cool, when he did not feel as if steam bled from his body off the back of his neck. The outside offered him only relief and refreshment, and so tonight he walked with his coat draped over his arm, his shirt unbuttoned at the top and necktie pulled down. He understood the principals of thermodynamics, and how the concept of warmth and cold was only a difference in energy between two systems. If the source was not replenishing, energy would transfer from one object to another, until both reached a common equilibrium. The night felt cool, and Mayes Kitteridge began to wonder why he ever bothered to dress in a coat at all.
He inhaled deeply, pulling until he felt a tight stretch at the bottom of his lungs. He released. His exhale was an extended sigh. He did not consider the circumstances of his battle, nor did he consider what it would mean when he won. He only thought of the light and how he‘d never let it dim, no matter how exhausted he felt. He thought about the nature of exhaustion: be it a nuclear power plant or human body, a machine needs fuel.
I‘ve earned this exhaustion, he thought, so he stopped for a moment, keeping his hand on the throat of the street lamp. The cracked, dark paint gave way to the cold, steel base of the lamppost where Kitteridge held his hand. It made him grip tighter, and looking up at the aura, he again forgot his exhaustion. This isn‘t mine, he thought. The lamppost doesn‘t belong to me. That lightbulb doesn‘t belong to me. Only there, the halo around it. That light, the energy that came out. That‘s mine.
He powered the entire city with the power generated from just a few atoms. He thought about that often, historically, but could never think of anyone, ever, who had done so much with so little. One example crept into his thoughts. He tried dismissed it, but it always came back: when God said, ‘let there be light.‘ That was the only comparable measure. Sometime the thought would drift further … But even God failed to do what I had done. Perhaps he could, but he didn’t. It took my choice, my will to light this city. God can have the sun, but that light coming from the street lights, that is mine.
He continued his walk home.
His wife, Helen, was surprised to hear him when he arrived. She knew not to expect him to come home after midnight. She could have wondered what made tonight different, but she consciously decided not to consider it. Helen long knew of his affair with his power plant, and felt it the greatest of compliments that the love Kitteridge showed for it was the same he granted her. She often thought: We‘re the same. I belong to him, just as that power plant. And the effort that he put into it, the hours, the ingenuity. They are mine as well. For my husband knows no other alternative than complete submission to his choice. And I know that if his body could be split, he mind would belong to the power plant and his heart would be mine. But they cannot be split; one cannot survive without the other. My neighbors say that I cannot depend on a man who works the way Mayes does, but what they do not understand is that he is the epitome of reliability. If they only knew that he runs his power plant in the manner he cares for me. But that will forever be a secret, a secret of which I am so desperately proud. He did not choose them, not like he chose his profession and not as he chose his wife. As he chose me. That is what it means to be his.
Kitteridge entered his house and walked straight to his bedroom. He laid down in his bed, pausing only to remove his coat and shoes and untuck his shirt. He rolled into this bed in a fluid motion without breaking from his previous steps. His momentum carried him from his side onto his back. Kitteridge was at rest before his movement stopped. He had come home on this night to treat his exhaustion, but knew the cure was not the little sleep he might find.
‘I‘m sorry, I don‘t have anything prepared for you, dear,‘ Helen Kitteridge said.
‘Shall I warm some soup for you?‘ she continued.
‘No, no, thank you, lovey. I don‘t wish to open my eyes right now. Looking takes too much effort.‘
‘Very well. Try to get some sleep. I‘m glad you‘re home.‘
The room went quiet, and Helen tried not to fall asleep. Many nights she shared the bed alone, thinking of her husband. She dared not move to disturb him, but tried to preserve this memory as best she could: the loose covers now over two people; the warmth of his body; the pressure of her skin against him – she noted it all. One night with him gave her the courage to face a month alone.
‘Wait,‘ he said suddenly. ‘Sing for me, but softly.‘
‘Of course, dear.‘
She moved closer to him, tucking his arm around her and burying her head into his shoulder. She now lay on her side, propped up against him. A moment of nervousness passed. Helen Kitteridge sang soprano for the city‘s renowned metropolitan opera. She‘d sang in front of thousands, and for the first time, felt slight apprehension as she lifted her voice. Her song gently fluttered as if it had no mass. Her voice maintained a weightless energy, graceful and light, and Kitteridge could only hear it when he consciously listened. Her song barely registered over silence and was the most beautiful thing Mayes Kitteridge had ever heard.
‘I want to dance with you, he said. ‘I want to dance with you, but I haven‘t the energy.‘
‘That‘s alright, dear. You can dream about it,‘ she said pulling herself closer and kissing his cheek. ‘You need to sleep.‘
‘I think I‘ve forgotten how,‘ He said. They were the last words spoken before the morning. The two lay next to each other, completely engulfed in the same moment.
This is it, he thought. This is surrender, the only surrender that I know. I can‘t give up my fight, but I can lay here in this moment and know that I am safe. Helen‘s song and voice was a buoyant force that lightened the weight of thought that Kitteridge carried. He did not come home so that his wife could see him. He came home to see her. To him, his wife and his power plant were his only loves. His power plant was in absolute crisis; his wife in absolute resolve. Seeing the his light on the street dropped his defenses. Being with his wife allowed him to build them up again, it reminded him of what was possible. The light was what he was fighting for. His wife: he‘d already won.
