The Last Hour of Light

READER 1 / 6

By sunset, the village hall had enough battery power for one more hour. The storm had passed, everyone was safe, and the essential lights had their own supply. But the harvest supper was still dark. On the kitchen table stood three things: a speaker for the dance, a projector for the children's film, and a lamp beside a half-finished quilt. Mara, who had organized the evening, held the single extension lead as if it were a judge's hammer.

READER 2 / 6

The dancers wanted the speaker. They had practiced for six weeks, including two evenings in the rain. The children wanted to show their film about the village's oldest tree, which had fallen that morning. Etta wanted the lamp. People had brought squares for a quilt that would hang in the rebuilt hall, and tonight was the only time all its makers could sit together. 'We could vote,' Mara said. Everyone counted the people standing near their own table.

READER 3 / 6

A vote would give the dancers the hour. There were fourteen of them, nine children, and five quilt makers. 'That's fair,' said Tomas, who had learned every step despite having two left feet. One of the children asked whether the people appearing in the film counted, even if they had gone home. Etta said nothing. She began folding the smallest fabric squares into a tin. Mara noticed that every proposed rule seemed to favor whoever had proposed it, including her own rule that they should finish deciding quickly.

READER 4 / 6

They tried dividing the hour into three equal parts. The film lasted twenty-eight minutes. The dancers needed fifteen. Etta didn't know how long five difficult stitches would take. 'Equal minutes don't do equal things,' Tomas said, surprising himself. Mara asked each table for the smallest thing that would make the evening worthwhile. The children wanted their tree remembered. The dancers wanted to perform once without stopping. Etta wanted to learn whose shirt each patch had come from before the stories were forgotten.

READER 5 / 6

They gave the projector twenty-eight minutes, then the speaker fifteen. The dancers performed around the quilt table, and someone counted the remaining battery lights. Seventeen minutes for the sewing. It wasn't enough. Etta left a conspicuous space in the middle of the quilt. Mara offered to find a matching patch later. 'Don't match it yet,' Etta said. 'We haven't heard from everyone.' Across the hall, a child complained that the film had been hard to hear over the washing-up. Their arrangement had worked, but it had not worked perfectly.

READER 6 / 6

The next morning, Mara wrote down what they had decided and what it had cost each table. Beside the schedule, Tomas added: ASK WHAT MATTERS BEFORE COUNTING HANDS. Etta added: SOMETIMES COUNT THE HANDS TOO. The children drew their fallen tree around both sentences. When the hall reopened, the quilt still had an empty square. Visitors sometimes mistook it for damage. Someone from the village would pull up a chair and explain the hour when they had discovered that sharing a room was easier than sharing a decision.