Chapter 13 · 2 min 56 sec
Night Prayer, No God Required
Grief that has found its proper place — the presence of the absent, held with dignity.
Lyrics· 264 words
[Verse 1] I don't fold my hands, I just lie here in the dark Talk to the ceiling like it's listening, give it my whole heart Not asking for nothing from the sky or beyond Just saying out loud what I survived and what I'm holding on
[Call/Response] Who are you talking to? (Nobody but the night) What are you asking for? (Nothing — just saying it's alright) Isn't this a prayer? (Call it what you want) Does it need an answer? (No — the saying is enough)
[Chorus] Night prayer, no god required Just a tired woman and the things she admired I thank my own two hands for getting through the day I thank the people I love in my own private way
[Verse 2] I say my mother's name, I say my daughter's too I say the names of everyone who carried me on through I don't need a temple, don't need a kneeling mat Just this bed, this dark, and the truth of where I'm at
[Bridge] Maybe there's a god, maybe there's just air Either way I'm grateful, either way I'm here This isn't faith exactly, it's something close to it It's choosing every night to not give up the wick
[Chorus] Night prayer, no god required Just a steady woman and the fire she still admires I bless my own scars, I bless my own name I bless the ones I lost and the ones who remain
[Outro] Goodnight to the dark, goodnight to the day I made it through again — that's all I came to say
Short Story
*A story for curious minds*
In a village with a well at its center, there was a widow named Solveig who came out every night after her chores were done and sat on the low stone wall beside it, talking quietly into the dark water below.
The other villagers found this odd, at first. A well doesn't answer. A well doesn't even particularly listen, having no ears, no mind, nothing but cold stone and a long drop to water that had sat there since before anyone could remember.
A curious young man named Pell finally worked up the nerve to ask her about it one evening, lingering nearby with his own bucket as an excuse.
"What do you say to it?" he asked. "If you don't mind my asking."
"Whatever's true that day," Solveig said. "Tonight I told it that my hip hurts less than it did last winter. I told it I was grateful for the eggs my hens gave me, and that I missed my husband, and that I'd forgiven my sister for something I won't bother telling you about."
"But it's a well," Pell said. "It can't hear you. It can't do anything with what you say."
"I know that," said Solveig, unbothered. "I'm not asking it to do anything. I think people get confused and believe that talking is always a request. Sometimes talking is just a way of making something true by saying it out loud, where it can't hide inside your own head anymore."
"Then why not just think it instead?"
Solveig considered this, the water below catching the last of the evening light in a thin silver line. "Because a thought can slip away before you've really looked at it," she said. "But a thing said out loud, even to a well, even to nobody — it has to sit there a moment and be heard by the air, at least. That's enough witnessing for me. I don't need the well to answer. I just need the saying."
Pell drew his water and went home, turning this over the way young people turn over things they don't yet understand but suspect they will, eventually, need.
Years later, an old man himself by then, he found that he too had taken up the habit of speaking certain things aloud to no one in particular before sleep — gratitude, grief, the names of people he loved — and he never did get an answer, from a well or anywhere else. He found, much as Solveig had, that he had stopped expecting one. The saying had simply become enough.
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