The Lantern That Wasn’t There

The winter of 2009 in Prayagraj was a cruel season. I had moved there from a small town to prepare for the civil services, renting a cramped room on the third floor of a building that faced the sprawling Alfred Park. The park was my only escape from the dreary textbooks, and I often spent evenings leaning against the windowsill, watching the city’s pulse. But it was the light poles that lined the park’s boundary that caught my attention. They were old, rusted iron things, each with a single sodium lamp that hummed with a sickly amber glow.

One evening, in the first week of December, I noticed something odd. A pole near the east gate, the one closest to my window, seemed to have an extra lamp. It was not a lamp, really—more like a fuzzy, flickering orb perched atop the pole, just above the main light. I blinked, thinking the cold had played a trick on my eyes. But the orb remained, pulsing gently, like a heartbeat. I watched it for an hour, and it never moved. It was as if the pole had grown a second, paler eye.

The next night, I asked my neighbor, a retired professor who had lived there for decades, if he had ever noticed anything strange about that pole. He laughed, shaking his head. ‘You’re seeing things, boy. That pole has only one light. Has been that way since I came here.’ When I pointed to the orb, he squinted, then frowned. ‘There’s nothing there.’ I turned to look, and indeed, the orb was gone.

But it returned the following night. I started keeping a diary, noting the times it appeared and vanished. It came at dusk, around 6:30 PM, and left exactly at 7:47 PM, just as the clock in my room struck the time. It was always the same size, the same sickly pale color, like a dead star. And it always hung above the pole, never on it. I tried taking photos, but in every image, the orb was missing, replaced by a faint smudge that looked like dust on the lens.

One night, unable to resist, I decided to approach the pole. The park was deserted, the cold biting through my jacket. As I walked along the gravel path, the orb seemed to swell, growing larger and larger until it was the size of a dinner plate. The air around the pole grew frigid, so cold my breath crystallized instantly. I reached out my hand, and the orb did not burn—it was like touching a block of ice. It was not hot, not light, but something else entirely, a presence that made my skin crawl.

Suddenly, a voice, dry and brittle as dead leaves, whispered in my ear, ‘You should not have come.’ I spun around, but there was no one. The orb began to move, descending slowly, and as it approached the ground, it took on a shape—a tall, gaunt figure, with long arms and a head bent at an unnatural angle. It stood before me, and I could not breathe. Its eyes were the same pale, pulsing light, and its mouth opened to reveal a void that seemed to swallow all sound.

‘I am the keeper of the lamp,’ it said, its voice now resonating from the pole itself. ‘I have been here for a hundred winters, watching the city. You are the first to see me. Why are you here?’ I stammered, ‘I… I don’t know. I just wanted to understand.’ The figure tilted its head, and a low, rasping laugh escaped it. ‘Understanding is a curse, boy. I was a man once, who sought to know the mysteries of the light. I found this lamp, and I became its keeper. Now, you must take my place.’

I felt a cold hand clamp over my hand, and the lamp’s glow intensified, as if trying to enter me. I cried out, wrenching my hand free, and stumbled backward. The figure began to fade, disintegrating into motes of pale light that dissolved into the dark. ‘You have denied me,’ it hissed, ‘but I will wait. I will always wait.’ And with that, it was gone. The pole stood empty, its single lamp casting its regular amber light.

I ran back to my room, locked the door, and did not leave for a week. But the orb never returned. The pole, I noticed, now had a faint crack running down its length, as if something had tried to break out. And every night, when I looked at that pole, I could have sworn I saw a pair of pale eyes staring back at me from within the glass, waiting for the night when I would be too weak to refuse.

To this day, I have not told anyone the full story. They would think me mad. But every winter, when the cold grips the city, I find myself drawn to that window, watching the pole, waiting for the orb to reappear. Part of me knows it will. And part of me fears that when it does, I will not be able to say no.