Making Contact

By Peter Bowden


The lamp sat on the oak desk, its brass base cool and steady, the shade tilted just so. He had carried it for years, through the quiet shuffle of rooms and the reordering of life. Tonight, he took it apart, careful hands unwinding what time and wear had loosened. The cord frayed like an old memory, but the metal still held the shine of the day she had placed it in his hands, her eyes bright with the simple joy of giving.

The work was steady, almost ceremonial. He stripped wires, twisted copper, tightened screws. Each small spark of connection carried him back—her laughter in the hallway, the way she set books in neat stacks in this very library. The lamp had lit those evenings when words filled the air, when silence was companionable, not empty. In the soft scratch of wire against wire, he felt her presence as sure as breath.

When the lamp flickered back to life, the glow spread like dawn across the shelves. A soft golden halo spilled outward, touching the spines of books, rippling along the walls, stirring shadows awake. He leaned back, the glow wrapping around him like her arms once did, a radiance that belonged to memory and to now. It was more than brass and wire—it was her gift, her light, burning still, eternal in its quiet song.


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