Strangely, Ham’s dream seemed to give him some joy. It’s not strange that the dream would give him joy except that joy was so rare in Dusk. As we know, the Huddlers didn’t celebrate much and didn’t get excited about much and pretty much every day was like every other day so what was there to get joyful about?
And yet, Ham had these moments of joy. You could always tell with Ham, because his frown disappeared and the gold sparkles in his eyes seemed more noticeable and his hair seemed to have just a slight extra ripple at those times.
If Ham was walking somewhere, when he was thinking about his dream, he would look straight ahead or even up instead of down at the ground, as most of the Huddlers did, and as Ham did most of the time. If you listened closely, you might hear a strange sound coming from Ham – something like humming, although no one quite knew what the sound was since they had never heard it before.
One day, the strangest thing happened. Ham was walking through the center of Dusk, as were a number of the other Huddlers of Dusk. As usual, Ham and the others were shuffling along, heads down, not talking or coughing or laughing. As usual, the day was somewhat overcast, the weather wasn’t really warm or cold or wet or dry, just drab. As usual, no one really looked at anyone else or talked to anyone else.
And then it happened… the sun peeked through the overcast, and seemed to throw a beam of light straight at Ham. As it reached toward him, it seemed that the golden highlights in his hair reached out and gathered the paltry bit of light to themselves and gleamed. Ham found himself standing in a spot that was just slightly lighter, just slightly warmer, just slightly gentler than his surroundings, and he stopped stock still. He looked up, and for the first time that anyone could remember, his eyes sparkled, and the golden flecks seemed to move a bit.
And Ham spoke! No one ever spoke while walking through the village. What was there to speak about? Life was the same, day after day, drab, dreary, dingy, dull. Not today – Ham spoke!
“I get it!”
That’s all he said. The other Huddlers of Dusk stopped momentarily, looked up, looked at each other, and then – as one – they shrugged and went back to shuffling along, eyes down, silently.
