The Light in Hidden Places

by Sharon Cameron

“The world is beautiful, but people make it ugly.”

“Sadness can become cruelty.

I learned three things from Emilika that day: First, walk as if you have important business, and most people will assume you do. Second, always have your hair curled. And third, help can come when it’s least expected, and that’s good to remember, because it means you’re never really alone.

Przemyśl had given me an education since that cart ride when I was twelve. It had taught me that people like to divvy up one another with names. Jew. Catholic. German. Pole. But these were the wrong names. They were the wrong dividing lines. Kindness. Cruelty. Love and hate. These were the borders that mattered.

If they knew, I tell myself, they would have been here already. It’s easier to tell yourself things like this than to actually believe them.

“We’re always living days we can never get back,” I say. “So we make new ones. That’s all.”