I was walking down the pebbled street during the night's final farewell to the day's trials and grating routines, just at that point when whispers morph back into whistles, and starlight disappears into floodlight, when I saw him. The man I did not know would turn into my new lighthouse. The only thing that would get me through the next 7 months, beaconing me through the long hours of pain, increduality, and unknowing. He was just standing there, lit unperfectly by the sputtering streetlight, the picture of fatigue and weariness. But who knew all of life's answers, all of the things that can really bring a person to their knees and force them into much-needed self-reflection, self-confrontation, could be wrapped up in one defeated, unpretty package? I didn't look, didn't even give a second glance to the future of my self.

What a pity.