25/04/2025
In the quiet village of Belleridge, mornings began not with alarms, but with the soft clucking of hens and the smell of dew-soaked hay. Twelve-year-old Eli knew the rhythm of farm life like the lines on his hands—early to rise, chores before breakfast, and school only if the cows were milked in time.
Eli lived with his grandfather, a man of few words but many stories, especially about how the town used to be. “There was a time,” Grandpa would say, “when the general store stayed open past sundown, and folks gathered on the porch with guitars and lemonade.”
Now, the porch was quiet. Most of the younger families had moved to the city. The fields still rolled golden in the evening sun, but fewer boots walked their paths.
One autumn evening, Eli found an old lantern in the barn—dusty, rusted, but still whole. “Let’s light it,” he said. Grandpa just chuckled, “You think one little light will make a difference?”
But Eli did. That night, he set it on the fence post at the edge of the pasture, its warm glow flickering like a heartbeat.
The next night, someone else added a lantern on their gate. Then another. Within a week, the road through Belleridge sparkled like fireflies in the dark.
Folks began to linger again. A guitar strummed softly on the porch. A pot of stew passed from one family to the next. And the village, once fading, remembered how to glow.
All it took was one boy, one lantern, and a belief that light—even the smallest kind—can bring people home.
