There are seasons in life when the world grows unbearably quiet—
not the peaceful kind, but the sort of silence Dickens might describe as
“a hush heavy enough to hear one’s heart crack beneath it.”
It’s the hour when every door you’ve knocked on refuses to open,
when opportunity slips through your fingers like ash,
and when the universe seems to whisper nothing at all.
Or so you think.
Because I have learned—slowly, stubbornly, painfully—
that the universe rarely shouts its intentions.
It speaks in corridors.
Long ones.
Unlit ones.
The kind that make you believe you’ve wandered off the edge of your own life.
I once stood there, exactly where you might be standing now:
between who I was and who I wasn’t sure I’d ever become.
And in that dim hallway, I mistook silence for abandonment.
I mistook “not yet” for “not ever.”
I mistook the closing of doors as the closing of my fate.
But life, clever as any Dickens narrator,
was rewriting my story behind the scenes—
quietly shifting the scenery, moving characters in and out,
preparing a chapter I didn’t even know I was walking toward.
Because sometimes the miracle isn’t the door that opens.
It’s the one that shuts so loudly
it forces you down a path you never imagined.
A path where you rediscover the pieces of yourself
that disappointment tried to steal.
A path where you learn that misfits aren’t mistakes—
they’re prototypes.
A path where you understand that the slow bloom
is sometimes the most breathtaking.
And somewhere near the end of that shadowed corridor,
when you’re tired enough to stop pretending
and brave enough to start listening…
A small lamp flickers on.
Not blinding.
Not dramatic.
Just enough to guide your next step.
Just enough to remind you:
You were never walking alone.
You were being escorted.
If this truth finds you today—
in the rubble, in the ache, in the waiting—
then perhaps you, too, are approaching the lamp meant for you.
And if your soul needs a companion for that walk,
my newest work sits quietly beside you,
ready to place its own light in your hands.
👉 The Lamp at the End of the Corridor by A.L. Childers
A story for misfits, late bloomers, quiet fighters, and anyone standing in the hallway between who they were and who they’re becoming.
