Nightlight

I have this new routine. Every evening, as the sun sets, I patrol the house and turn on the lights in the upstairs rooms. My family are all downstairs, eating and laughing and crying and living. I'm upstairs, some kind of guard, warding off darkness one lamp at a time.
Some days I long for night, but I never yearn for darkness. Night aids, darkness swallows. I start in my parents' room: switch on the bedside lamp and then, and only then, shut the curtains. As if to say to the darkness, Better luck next time.