Light the Night

The first time Clary heard about it, it was just an opportunity for 3 hours of community service. It was apparently a regular thing for Alicante to participate in this kind of stuff.

Help out your local charity, participate with others to better today's world.

LIGHT THE NIGHT WALK

October 5 from 5:30pm to 9:00pm

Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and raise money for a cure to Leukemia and Lymphoma

Meet at 5:30 at South Street Seaport

Check with Mr. Burt to sign up

Join Team Alicante: 3 hours of Community Service as well as raising money for a good cause

Clary glanced at the flyer with disinterest. Walk across the bridge at night? It would be freezing and Clary would be tired as hell when they got into Brooklyn.

"You thinking about signing up?" Simon asked, as he shifted his bag. Clary shrugged.

"Nah…I'd rather go back to my warm house and lay on the couch or something." Simon smiled a grin so wide Clary was sure it would split his face in half. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What?"

"That's a shame." He said. Clary looked at him.

"Why? A lot of other people are going." Simon shook his head and chuckled.

"I meant that's a shame for you…since I signed you up."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Clary glanced at the clock, her highlighter never lifting off of the page. She had to finish this before 5:30 and so far it wasn't looking too good. Her feet couldn't stop moving, scratching her old running sneakers even more. She growled in frustration as the minute hand moved a little closer to the 6. With a flourish, she whipped out her pen and wrote the last annotation before shoving everything in her backpack.

"Mom, I'm going to Light the Night. Don't wait up!" Her mother's distracted reply didn't reach her as she swept out the door. She could kill Simon for this. Now, she could be slowly taking her time on homework but now she was going to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge at night.

The Seaport was packed by the time she got there. Clary grabbed a white necklace with shinned green light when you pressed a button and put it around her neck. She pinned the red ribbon on her shirt. Red mean general support, gold meant you were walking in memory of someone and white meant that you were a survivor. After signing in and getting her lit up balloon, she was now on a quest to find Simon.

"Clary! Clary!" Clary whipped around and was relieved to see Simon in the midst of the swarming crowd. She shoved her way over to him. "We're going to start walking soon!" Clary, despite herself, couldn't help herself from smiling at the sea of red, gold and white balloons.

The streets were crowded with screams and urges of encouragement. Clary tugged on the wire of her balloon, making a narrow collision with someone's face. The precession was slow and steady through the streets of New York as traffic honked a symphony at them. Clary didn't seem to feel the coldness or soreness of her feet as she was swarmed with hundreds of walkers.

"I've never seen such a turn out!" She heard a woman say. Even through the windows of upstairs apartments, she could see the red balloons floating in the windows. The entire downtown area was at a standstill, all eyes on the train of people making their way to the bridge. Clary set her first step on the inclining pavement as people made their way through, camera flashing with frozen moments captured.

The city lights glowed, illuminating the water on the East River. Clary couldn't help but place her hand on the frozen, strong metal wire. The bridge held through so many things and was there throughout her entire life. It'll probably hold long after she's gone and now she was walking on it. She was walking to find a cure to cancer. The idea seemed to foreign and advanced to her but think about how technologically forward it was to build at bridge stretching across the East River to people in those days.

The rusted metal and peeling paint seemed to hold her down as she tried not to pay attention at the startling drop below the gaps of the wooden walkway. She had already lost Simon in the crowd a while ago, but somehow she wasn't bothered. She'd find him later because now you couldn't find anyone.

Clary found herself stopping at the side to admire the beautiful view of the city skyline. It was strange how a city of such business could create a scene so peaceful.

"Isn't that sort of cliché to look at?" Clary's lips twitched in annoyance. It was him again coming to spoil the moment.

"If it is than why do people come all the way around the world, climb up the bridge to see it?" Jace was quiet for a moment.

"I don't know mankind has always been way too proud." She turned around and glanced at him.

"I see a prime example right here." He rolled his eyes.

"Come on and walk with me, you're impeding traffic." Her protest was cut off by his arm pulling her along with him.

"So why are you on this walk?" Clary said as she took a swing from her water bottle. Jace shrugged.

"This is probably one of my last chances." Clary looked at him.

"You know this walk is an annual thing right?"

"No, my last chance to do this before college and work and everything. My last chance at saving the world or at least contributing to saving it."

"No one can save the world." Clary said softly. Jace looked at her and grinned.

"We'd all like to think that we can." There was silence for a moment.

"Is that why people are kind? They think they can change something or someone?" Clary said. Clary had felt good about doing all those deeds yes but the pride of being able to make someone happy just by doing something small…it was indescribable. Jace sighed.

"You have to understand, to be truly kind there are no ulterior motives. No one thinks 'well I want to change something today, I'll just go be nice to some random stranger' kindness doesn't' work like that. People always think about themselves but really, it's just, if even for one second, we think about someone else for a change, we change the world whether we realize it or not."

Clary glanced back at the skyline, so many people, living, breathing people with family and friends and their own lives. People who have never met each other and probably never will, people who have the possibility of being kind to each other and then never seeing each other again, it was hard to warp her head around.

"I still don't think the skyline is anything special." Jace said. "But this," he gestured around to the long line of people, "this many people gathering together to perform an act of kindness, this makes a lasting impression." Clary glanced around and smiled. Thanks Simon…she thought.

They reached the halfway point with the American flag flapping wildly around n the pole. She glanced up at the sky, at the luminous quarter moon. She had never felt so small amongst the group of people. She felt something warm grip her hand and looked down in surprise at Jace. He lifted her hand that was holding the balloon.

"You want to make a lasting impression right? I don't know how long this balloon will float around but-"

"Wait." Clary worked the wire off of the red stick switch. She shoved it in her pocket. "For memory." She grinned. She could feel Jace's hand envelop hers as she struggled not to allow her presence to affect her thinking. She focused on the red balloon bobbing in the air. She could feel the wire slipping through her fingers as the wind gently pulled it out of her grip. Her eyes stayed on the balloon as it navigated its way through the dark night. Please stay up there for a long time, she thought, please make it count, please make me matter…

"Come on, we should finish the walk…" Jace pulled her along. Clary followed willingly. That night, he didn't let go of her hand once. That night for once in her life, Clary noticed at the ground was the place containing the stars and the light while the sky paled in comparison.

Sorry this was short but I just did Light the Night a few days ago and I thought it would be important to talk about. Yes, you do walk across the Brooklyn Bridge at night and yes, you do raise money to cure Leukemia and Lymphoma. It was really fun and challenging to see how far you can go. The view was beautiful and I did the balloon release thing with my friends. So next chapter is on the way, look out.