On Plato and Lamplight, by Kimberly Hall

Reading by Lamplight, by James McNeill Whistler (USA) 1859

On Plato and Lamplight
 
The lamp at her desk is more for comfort than necessity – she has always been afraid of the dark, and anyway the book in her hands is one she could recite, she is sure, word for word. An ancient philosophical dialogue about time and the sun, about the nature of reality. The nature of society. The physics of light and space – how one's placement on the horizon changes what can be seen and what will be perceived.
 
Books have always been easier than people, she thinks. The people in books easier than the people outside of them. Their thoughts and feelings clearer, sharper. Their ideals more real than the time it takes to absorb them.
 
Beyond the safety of her desk and its protective lamp, the world warps into a primordial black hole – a carnivorous echo chamber, feeding off of its own distortions. Unwritten rules. Unreadable expressions. Flashing cameras and shiny faces, their fixation on perfection without form. Even now, Plato’s shadow puppets flutter about her vision, blurring the edges – chattering and buzzing and eclipsing the light. 
 
She used to think it would get easier, as time passed. Her spotlight brain would grow into spotlight eyes, able to read books and words and people with effortless ease, even deep within the darkness of the cave. She wouldn’t need a lamp to calm her rabbit-quick heart. She wouldn’t need a hardback spine, or an exoskeleton surrounding her oversensitive insides. She wouldn’t need to be afraid of the dark.
 
She wonders what the ancient philosophers would think about redshift, and the shape of gravity. The way the world bends beneath the weight of light. She wonders if perhaps Plato was afraid of the dark too.

Kimberly Hall
​
Kimberly Hall (she/her) is a queer and neurodivergent writer based in Southeast Texas, with a master's degree in behavioural science. Her work has appeared in several print anthologies, including
Chaos Dive Reunion (2023) from Mutabilis Press, as well as in online publications such as Sappho's Torque, Equinox, and The Ekphrastic Review. She is currently working on her first collection of poetry.