Finding a Light in a World Full of Darkness

The year 2020 was supposed to be a good year, at least that is what everyone expected. It should be a delightful year, filled with sunny days and extraordinary successes. Not until the news about the new viral disease exploded, not until the war against Coronavirus started. Everyone was caught off guard by this news, but another explosion and another war came up. It seems like the stone that is born of light suddenly vanished, living everyone with the stone that is born of darkness.

On August 4, 2020, the world was shocked by the Beirut explosion, leaving those people in Lebanon and everyone across the world in shock and grief. According to the BBC, a massive fire at the Port of Beirut was preceded by a large fire on the city’s northern Mediterranean coast. In videos posted on social media, white smoke could be seen billowing from Warehouse 12, next to the huge grain silos.

Shortly, the warehouse roof caught alight, and there was a sizeable initial explosion, followed by a series of smaller blasts that some witnesses said sounded like fireworks going off. About 30 seconds later, a colossal explosion sent a mushroom cloud into the air and a supersonic blast wave radiating through the city.

On the other hand, many Lebanese insisted that the sounds of fighter jets accompanied the blast. They attributed their familiarity with jet engines’ sound to the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, during which Israeli warplanes pounded south Beirut. Sadly, it is said that almost 300 people died because of the explosion. 

In times like this, when war, explosions, and the darkness has been invading a nation, it is when hope is needed – a single, tiny spark of light and hope, just like what happens in Dean G E Matthews foundation stone series. Although the book The Dark Taal is fiction, it can still be related to what is happening globally, just like in Beirut.

The Dark Taal is about Aridain Bruin, a young boy whose destiny is to find and destroy the Firebrand and Chimera stones. He was born into the world of Aymara, currently, a world blighted by suspicion and uncertainty. Thousands of years ago, the gods, to bring balance and harmony, made the Firebrand stone and the Chimera stone. The Firebrand stone was born of darkness and the Chimera stone born of light. With his dark opposite stalking him, Aridain, with the aid of friends and family, must quickly learn who he is and control the magic that will aid him in his quest to defeat the Dark Taal and then find and destroy the stones.

Is it possible to overcome the darkness, just like what Aridain is supposed to do? Is it possible that in the world, after what happened in Beirut and in the other different country, where war and explosions seem to wake them in the middle of the night, that hope can be found? Maybe it is time for people to extend kindness and spark light to the world, one at a time.