There has been debate in the scientific community as to whether or not light has weight. Some believe that since light has both energy and momentum and can create a gravitational effect, that it therefore has weight. Some say that since weight is determined by the gravitational force exerted on objects with mass (and photons do not have resting mass), it couldn't possibly weigh anything.

The man at the bar knew that light and darkness both weighed more than everything in the whole goddamned world. At least, figuratively. He quickly downed his double scotch whiskey and signaled the bartender for another.

"Haven't you had enough, fella? I mean, you've had nine of 'em already, and it is only 10:30 in the morning."

The man scowled and tapped his glass repeatedly on the bar. Despite red-rimmed eyes and a bloated and blotched complexion,n an astonishingly clear voice, he snarled: "I'll tell you when I've had enough, boy. Now give me a damned refill!"

The bartender acquiesced. "OK, dude … it's your liver."

After the bartender returned to the other end of the bar to wash glasses, the man turned his attention to the TV on the wall. A perky blonde wearing a low cut blouse and $500 shoes was chattering on a news channel with an obviously well-paid bald psychiatrist and a D-list blonde comedienne who'd done several crappy movies (and a spread in a porno magazine) about the sudden rise in mental illness diagnoses across the country. The psychiatrist was apparently blaming it on the President and gay people; the "actress," Polio vaccines.

"Couple of fucking morons," the man mumbled to himself. "It has nothing to do with any of that." He closed his eyes, and the station changed to a talk show where a man and woman were finding out the paternity of their 3-year-old child.

"Luke, you are the father!" the toothy male talk show host exclaimed to wild hoots, squeals and howls from the studio audience. The man and woman embraced and kissed. Tears were streaming down both of their faces as their rosy-cheeked toddler was carried out to them by a production assistant wearing a headset two sizes too big for her.

The man winced. He, too, had once been a father. And he too had felt overjoyed when his infant daughter had been handed to him, and he held her in his arms for the very first time. He remembered stroking the baby's soft dark brown hair and kissing her tiny forehead, fingers and toes. His wife, Dafna, had wanted to name the baby "Chava," after the first woman. But in the end, his innate ability to influence had persuaded her to name the child "Abigail" … "my father's delight."

It was a fitting name, he thought to himself. She was the most beautiful creature I'd ever laid eyes upon.

He closed his eyes and remembered the child. Her cry, her laugh, her wobbling first footsteps. Her smile as he sang to her in her cot at night. The sound of her breath, followed by her soft little snores.

Abigail had been the spitting image of her mother in most respects, but she definitely had inherited her father's dark, brooding, expressive eyes. This had been both good and bad. More than once, she'd been labeled a 'troublemaker,' and for good reason.

She hadn't just inherited her father's eyes. She'd also inherited some of her father's power. And back in those days, before the advent of reason and science, a young girl with power was as good as dead.

When her mother had noticed Abigail reaching for a piece of low-hanging fruit, and the fruit floated down like a feather into the child's hand, she'd been terrified and went to speak with the child's father. He assured her that he'd watch over the girl and teach her to restrain her abilities. That night they'd both sat down and spoken with Abigail, warning her and making her promise never to let anyone know what she could do.

Abigail had been playing with her friend Yosef by the small creek separating their land from their neighbor Eitan's. She had been four. Yosef, five. They'd grown to become the best of friends.

Dammit, the man thought. I don't want to remember! He raised a finger to order another whiskey and gulped it down.

It had been springtime. The sun shone brightly in the sky, and a gentle breeze made the aroma of fruit-bearing trees fill the air. The two of them floated small leaves down the waterway, each cheering with delight whenever one overtook the other. But then, when Yosef's leaf became lodged in a fallen branch and Abigail's leaf passed it, he'd decided to try and wade out and release it. He didn't know the bottom of the creek suddenly dropped off and became deeper until it was too late.

Abigail screamed for Yosef when he didn't come back up. The water frightened her, and she began to wail. She reached out her hand and cried the child to come back to her.

And he did. He came back to her.

Eitan had heard Abigail's cries and ran to see what was happening. Yosef's older brothers Dan and Dotan had followed along behind Eitan, as well as the wife of another neighbor who'd just come by to trade for eggs. As the group reached the spot where Abigail stood, none of them could believe what they were seeing: Abigail, standing on the water's edge with her hands held out as if to catch something … the waters opening up to reveal the boy rising above them to finally come to rest on the shore.

But it was too late. Yosef was gone. Eitan crumpled to his knees by his son's lifeless body and scooped him to his chest, weeping. Dotan and the neighbor woman remained motionless, but Dan walked quickly up to the little girl.

"Witch! Demon!" Dan had screamed at Abigail. "Filthy, murderous witch! You murdered my brother!" Abigail spun around, not having heard Dan sneak up hehind her. He grabbed the terrified girl by the hair and flung her forcefully to the ground. Her face smashed hard against a river rock, knocking out two teeth and rendering her unconscious. Dotan looked on in horror, but did nothing.

"Father, this is a daughter of the Evil One!" Dan hissed through clenched teeth. "We must cleanse the uncleanness from among us!" He turned to Dotan. "Bring me wood, and rope. Only fire can burn away the abomination!"

His father didn't hear him. He hugged Yosef, singing his favorite lullaby between sobs and rocking slightly. It would be weeks before he acknowledged anything or anyone, and even then, he spoke in single syllables for the rest of his life.

Dotan returned more quickly than Dan had expected with the wood and rope. Abigail, still unconscious, remained still as the two boys bound her tightly with the rope. They made a pile of the wood and stuck kindling at the base, then lay the child atop the makeshift pyre.

Dan began to look for flint to make a spark. He crawled on the ground and searched through stones, but then stopped as a stranger he hadn't noticed earlier seemed to suddenly appear, carrying an already-lit torch. He wore black hooded robes which hid much of his face, but Dan could tell that the stranger was smiling. Only the smile didn't seem like a normal smile - it was more like that of a wild beast baring its teeth. "Cleansssse the uncleannessss from among you, child," the stranger said, and the words sounded like the buzzing of a hundred thousand flies. Dan couldn't be sure, but the stranger's skin looked mottled. Burned, even.

The kindling had caught quickly, and Abigail hadn't been awake to know what had happened. Small comfort to a grieving father.

The man at the bar gritted his teeth and called for another round as the memory of Abigail's fire-charred body invaded his mind. He remembered Dafna's screams, and how after they'd buried their little girl, she'd gone out and hung herself.

He hadn't been there for Abigail. He'd been away, ironically, to find her a unique gift, something to make her smile. And he was so distracted in his own grief that he barely noticed his wife's. Now, the only place he'd see either of them again was in his memory.

For the first thousand years or so, he'd wandered the Earth. A thousand years later, the clay men had discovered how to make wine, and he'd found it to be a somewhat efficacious - if not entirely therapeutic - way to forget. When whiskey was invented, he'd visited nearly every bar and liquor store in the world trying to drink away his insurmountable pain. Problem was, when you happened to be an immortal being created from light whose form miraculously tended to instantaneously heal itself from the effects of the tasty but poisonous brown liquid, drinking became more of a pastime than a remedy.

He put on a brown leather jacket, reaching inside to pull out three $20 bills. Tossing it on the bar, he started to walk out the front door, but then stopped and cocked his head as if listening to something.

"Hey, kid ... where's the nearest church?"

The bartender laughed as he dried a glass with a dishtowel. "Seeking forgiveness for drinking most of my whiskey, are ya?"

The man frowned. "Just spill it. Where?"

"Out Long Lake Road, east of here. About ... oh ... four or five miles, give or take."

The man thanked him, and pulling up the collar of his coat, walked out the door.