In the Stillness of the Night”

 In the Stillness of the Night”

Writer: Vijay Madan

Vijay sat in his study late one night, nursing a glass of whiskey as the flickering candle cast shadows on the walls. His thoughts, always wandering, drifted toward the duality of light and darkness, two forces that had occupied his mind ever since he had first dived into the mysteries of physics and philosophy. As he stared at the flame, he began to see light in a new way.

"Light," he mused aloud, "is such a fragile thing, always dependent on some fuel, some external cause to keep it alive. It dances, flickers, and eventually fades. Light never seems to belong to itself."

He observed the candle flame as it swayed in response to the smallest disturbance, never still, always at the mercy of something greater. For years, Vijay had been captivated by the science of light—its particles, its waves, how it traveled and illuminated the universe. But tonight, something about its fragility gnawed at him.

"It’s fleeting," he whispered, "a mere effect, always born out of some kind of ignition. The flame burns for a while, but it always dies."

His gaze shifted from the candle to the deep shadows cast by the light. There, in the dark recesses of the room, was a stark contrast to the fickle nature of light. The darkness, he realized, was more constant, more eternal. There was something profound in its stillness, something that seemed beyond the reach of time and decay.

"Darkness," Vijay muttered as he leaned back in his chair, "is always there, whether we notice it or not. It’s not created by anything; it doesn’t need a reason to exist. Light comes and goes, but darkness... it simply  is ."

He closed his eyes, feeling the cool air in the room, the weight of his thoughts pressing down on him. In his years of studying entropy, chaos, and the universe, he had learned that the natural state of things was disorder, that the cosmos was always heading toward chaos, toward an inevitable return to stillness. Light was a brief interruption, a spark in the endless void. But darkness—it was constant, like the background hum of the universe itself.

"Perhaps darkness is the true nature of reality," he thought. "Light is just a brief moment, a ripple on the surface of the infinite ocean."

In that moment, Vijay’s mind wandered to his life. The moments of joy, the successes, the laughter—they had all been like flashes of light. Beautiful, yes, but always temporary. They came, they illuminated, and then they vanished. But his struggles, his loneliness, the quiet nights spent with nothing but his thoughts—those moments felt more real, more permanent, like the darkness he now appreciated. 

For years, he had sought happiness, meaning, some bright revelation to guide him. But now, he realized that the answer had always been there, quietly lurking in the shadows. The truth of life wasn’t in the fleeting moments of light; it was in the stillness, the depth, the eternal calm of darkness. It was the silence between notes in a song, the space between thoughts, the void from which everything emerged.

He stood up and walked to the window, gazing out at the night sky. The stars twinkled faintly, small and distant, like the flame of the candle. But the vast blackness of space stretched on endlessly, indifferent to the pinpricks of light.

"Perhaps," he whispered to himself, "we’ve been chasing