Given a series of power failure episodes in my area in the last days, I was able to lie on the sofa before going to bed and play with the light as I used to do when I was a child. At that time the fun wouldn’t last long because my mother would tell me to stop much before I had explored the living room walls. But last night  I was left alone on the sofa, so I sent light all over the furniture and onto the walls,  the Christmas tree, the curtain rail, the window glass and throught the open window, onto the neighbor’s roof, my feet, my forehead, into my mouth.

And I was reminded of my childhood days, when we would visit relatives in the countryside and children would sit with the adults around oil lamps or candles when the night came. While they talked about things adults talk about, we’d  tell creepy stories, make shadows on the walls or play with the fire, challenging one another to run fingers the closest we dared to the flames, under the protest of angry mothers.

Gabriel García Márquez wrote Strange Pilgrims, a collection of twelve short stories published in 1992 among which there is Light is like water, written the year I was born – 1978, a favorite I promised myself I would read to my children. It is actually a Christmas tale, how appropriate is that?!

Two young brothers ask for a boat in return for their excellent perfomance at school. When their parents finally buy them the toy row boat, complete with sextant and compass, they have this amazing idea to break the light bulbs in their home, let light flow cool as water until it reaches a depth of four hand spans and then sail around the house. They take it up as a hobby, and try to master it every Wednesday, while their parents are away at the movies. The boys end up drowning in the light, but it’s a terrific tale, totally worth reading and telling, please do!

The story tells those kids drowned because they hadn’t mastered the art of sailing on light. Márquez’s tale has always taken me to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which plays with the notion of what would occur if people suddenly encountered the divine light of the sun, and perceived true reality, or what would happen if people actually became enlightened by Philosophy?

In the beginning of the Allegory of the Cave, Plato represents man’s condition as being “chained in a cave”, with only a fire behind him. He perceives the world by watching the shadows on the wall. He sits in darkness with the false light of the fire and does not realize that this existence is wrong or lacking. It merely is his existence — he knows no other nor offers any complaint. Plato next discusses what would occur if the chained man were suddenly released and let out into the world, you might enjoy reading that.

It is no secret truth must be experienced instead of told, because language fails to convey belief. I’ll tell my children light is like water, and I’ll teach them to sail on light because I want them to see lands I haven’t, I want them to master the art of sailing on light and teach it to their own children so they’ll witness the birth of a world I won’t live to see but always believed possible. I’m pretty confident that in this world children will be allowed to play with flickering flames.