Lunch Ticket
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
    • Issues Archive
      • Issue 27: Summer/Fall 2025
      • Issue 26: Winter/Spring 2025
      • Issue 25: Summer/Fall 2024
      • Issue 24: Winter/Spring 2024
      • Issue 23: Summer/Fall 2023
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
      • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
      • Issue 1: Spring 2012
    • Genre Archive
      • Creative Nonfiction
      • Essays
      • Fiction
      • Flash Prose
      • Interviews
      • Lunch Specials
      • Poetry
      • Translation
      • Visual Art
      • Young Adult
  • About
    • Mission Statement
    • Lunch Ticket Staff
      • Issue 27: Summer/Fall 2025
      • Issue 26: Winter/Spring 2025
      • Issue 25: Summer/Fall 2024
      • Issue 24: Winter/Spring 2024
      • Issue 23: Summer/Fall 2023
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
      • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
      • Issue 1: Spring 2012
    • Achievements
    • Community
    • Contact
  • Weekly Content
    • Friday Lunch Blog
    • Midnight Snack
    • Amuse-Bouche
    • School Lunch
  • Contests
    • Diana Woods Award in CNF
      • Issue 27: Summer/Fall 2025
      • Issue 26: Winter/Spring 2025
      • Issue 25: Summer/Fall 2024
      • Issue 24: Winter/Spring 2024
      • Issue 23: Summer/Fall 2023
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
    • Gabo Prize in Translation
      • Issue 27: Summer/Fall 2025
      • Issue 26: Winter/Spring 2025
      • Issue 25: Summer/Fall 2024
      • Issue 24: Winter/Spring 2024
      • Issue 23: Summer/Fall 2023
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
    • Twitter Poetry Contest
      • 2021 Winners
      • 2020 Winners
      • 2019 Winners
  • Submissions
  • Click to open the search input field Click to open the search input field Search
  • Menu Menu
  • Link to Facebook
  • Link to Instagram
  • Link to X

What I Thought About When It All Went Dark

September 15, 2017/in Blog / Jesus Sierra

At the intersection of Hayes and Van Ness, a thin elderly man stands in the median. He wears a baseball cap that covers most of his white, closely cropped hair. He is trim and clean-shaven. Hardly someone whom one would consider homeless. His posture is erect, and proud. He holds a sign with neat and large, legible block letters that reads, “In Need. Sorry to Ask,” and lifts the sign only when the light turns red. He looks away from the vehicles at the light, which makes one wonder how he would be able to see anyone offering help. Drivers would have to wave, or call out to him, or honk to get his attention.

Two blocks down, at the intersection of Duboce and Van Ness, there is another man. He is much younger. His baseball cap is worn and not pulled all the way down, exposing his forehead and matted hair. He has a rough beard and wears a red, Rutgers University sweatshirt. His sign is written on a torn piece of cardboard with uneven edges. The writing is difficult to read. It says, “Homeless. Please Help.” He strolls between cars and aims his menacing stares at the drivers, eliciting guilt and money.

In both cases, drivers roll their windows up and look away to avoid eye contact. It makes one wonder just how much of a difference there is between those driving and those on the street. Only a car door separates their circumstances. How quickly can a man’s fortunes turn from sitting in, to standing outside of a car?

But not everyone looks away. Some will roll the window down, will call the man over, rifle through their purses and wallets and offer to help.

The drivers pull away, and watch in the rear-view mirrors as the homeless men fold their cardboard signs back in half and wait for the next red light, the next hope.

*     *     *

Cubans have a saying, “You can’t cover the entire sky with a single finger.” The light always remains. The recent eclipse brought darkness to the early morning. It was a temporary retreat from judging one another, from the noise, hate, and anxiety about what our future may hold. Everyone paused, looked away from each other and cast their eyes upon the only thing they couldn’t possess, the sky above. In that moment, in the silence, in the awe, there was peace.

It took the moon to block out the sun. But the moon crossing the sun doesn’t cause true darkness. Sometimes, our actions can cast shadows large enough to keep the light from those who need it most.

*     *     *

In the novel Blindness, Jose Saramago describes a virus that makes people go immediately blind. It spreads quickly and the city where the story takes place descends into panic and chaos. The events of Charlottesville, Barcelona, and the indiscriminate drone bombings in the Middle East are some symptoms of a similar collective virus: the disregard for human life. Whereas losing one’s sight can be devastating, choosing not to see can be just as damaging, particularly when that choice causes the inability to see ourselves in others, when we view their plight as separate from our own.

Mankind has been afflicted with this virus for all recorded history. It appears incurable. It seems even more prevalent and contagious these days, because the instruments by which it spreads are more sophisticated and completely impersonal. Technology drives a wedge between us and our humanity. Our voices are drowned by captions on mobile devices. We’re becoming virtual versions of ourselves. Our images are reduced to pixels on a screen, easily duplicated and stored inside machines.

As if they alone will keep us alive.

*     *     *

In these times of crisis, when our very survival as a species is at stake, our chosen leader’s willful blindness speaks only for those who have chosen not to see: bomb North Korea (who needs them); get rid of the immigrants (they’re not American); build the wall (keep the rest out); denounce the arts (what’s the point?); privatize education (the disadvantaged need to remain disadvantaged); eliminate health care for the poor (that way we can eliminate the weak and the old); build more jails (for the leftovers); build the pipeline (it’s their land but who cares). Unlike the eclipse, it doesn’t take a moon to block out this conscious lack of humanity. This you CAN stop with a single finger, not to block the light, but to draw the line, point the way. We just have to raise our fingers, together.

*     *     *

Years before, a young immigrant kid hears the bell ring. It’s his first day of middle school in his new country. He doesn’t speak English and has no friends. He follows the rest of the kids to the yard—because he assumes that’s what he’s supposed to do—where he sits on the long wooden bench against a wall. He is small and brown and, even though he is in seventh grade, his feet don’t reach the ground. In front of him are three baskets. Latinos play basketball on the one nearest to him. Black kids play on the basket to his right. To his left, the Filipinos play on the remaining court. He watches as the ball from the Filipino basket bounces away, rolls past the Latino court, and into where black kids are playing. Everyone stops and the yard goes silent. No one moves. No one dares cross into the other’s court. The young immigrant kid doesn’t understand. Where he comes from, black kids, white kids, and brown kids played together all the time. He begins to wonder where he belongs. He rises and walks through them all to retrieve the ball.

*     *     *

Long before that, in a small church outside Havana, mass is interrupted when a mare gives birth to a foal right outside the side door. Even the priest comes out to watch the spectacle. A young woman faints from the noonday heat. The foal’s silky legs bow and tremble, uncertain until it finds its balance and rises. The mare rests. Everyone applauds. Some people cry. Some are disgusted.

No need to finish the mass. No need for a sermon. Witnessing birth, the dawn of a new life, everyone is reminded that we will persist.

*     *     *

In these dark times it is important to remember that power doesn’t speak for us, those who can still see. And while we may feel at a loss watching our government’s blatant disregard for the environment, for human rights, for basic human decency, we must believe that sometimes those who hit the bottom hardest can rebound the highest, because the seeds of rebirth are often found in the darkness of despair. And we, the ones whose sight is not lost, will persist.

Soon, the moon will move, and the light will return.

 

Jesus Francisco Sierra is currently working towards his MFA in Fiction at Antioch University Los Angeles. He emigrated from Cuba in 1969 and grew up in San Francisco’s Mission District. He still resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. Although he has been a lifelong writer and storyteller, he makes a living as a structural engineer. His inspiration, and his most supportive audience, are his adult daughter and son. He is fascinated by how transitions, both sought and imposed, have the power to either awaken or suppress the spirit. His work has previously been published in Marathon Literary Review and The Acentos Review.

https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/turkey01.jpg 1117 1778 Jesus Sierra https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Jesus Sierra2017-09-15 10:20:422022-02-09 13:21:33What I Thought About When It All Went Dark

Friday Lunch Archive

  • 2025
  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2021
  • 2020
  • 2019
  • 2018
  • 2017
  • 2016
  • 2015
  • 2014

Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

Dig Into Genre

May 23, 2025/in Midnight Snack / Michelle Hampton
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Lauren-Howard-credit-Terril-Neely-scaled-773x1030-1.jpg 1030 773 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2025-05-23 23:59:492025-06-17 18:29:02Dig Into Genre

The dreams in which I’m (not) dying

April 25, 2025/in Midnight Snack / Michelle Hampton
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/paparouna-photo.jpeg 960 720 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2025-04-25 23:55:312025-04-24 15:06:46The dreams in which I’m (not) dying

On The Map

March 28, 2025/in Midnight Snack / Michelle Hampton
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/20220807-ariadnesaxt-MurielReid-01.jpg 1123 2000 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2025-03-28 23:55:152025-03-31 11:49:32On The Map

More Midnight Snacks »

Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

Tale of the resistant apple tree

June 6, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / paparouna
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/TaharBekri.jpg 512 340 paparouna https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png paparouna2025-06-06 11:00:072025-06-17 18:56:48Tale of the resistant apple tree

Talyshi Wall Graffiti and other poems

May 30, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / Michelle Hampton
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Ghazal-headshot.jpg 867 590 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2025-05-30 11:00:492025-06-17 18:59:20Talyshi Wall Graffiti and other poems

we don’t spend our lives in the belly of the fish

May 16, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / Michelle Hampton
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/headshot-translator-Gabriella-Bedetti.jpg 400 400 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2025-05-16 11:00:362025-06-17 19:02:56we don’t spend our lives in the belly of the fish

More Amuse-Bouche »

School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Lizzy Young
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SL-Insta-Brendan-Nurczyk-2.png 1500 1500 Lizzy Young https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Lizzy Young2021-05-12 10:18:392022-02-01 13:24:05I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Lizzy Young
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-FB-Isabella-Dail.png 788 940 Lizzy Young https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Lizzy Young2021-04-28 11:34:132021-04-28 11:34:13A Communal Announcement

Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Caroline Shannon Karasik
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-Insta-Abigail-E.-Calimaran.png 1080 1080 Caroline Shannon Karasik https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Caroline Shannon Karasik2021-04-14 11:22:062021-04-14 11:22:06Seventeen

More School Lunch »

Word From the Editor

The state of the world breaks my heart every day. Broken hearted, I stay online. I can’t log off. Because my career and schooling are all done remotely, I tend to struggle with boundaries regarding screen time, with knowing when to break away.

Like many of you, I have been spilling my guts online to the world because the guts of the world keep spilling. None of it is pretty. But it’s one of the things that, having searched for basically my entire life, I found that tempers the chaos that lives rent free inside my head.

More from the current editor »
Current Issue »

Connect With Us

lunchticket on facebooklunchticket on instaX
Submit to Lunch Ticket

A literary and art journal
from the MFA community at
Antioch University Los Angeles.

Get Your Ticket

We’ll keep you fed with great new writing, insightful interviews, and thought-provoking art, and promise with all our hearts never to share your info with anyone else.

Newsletter Signup
Copyright © 2012-2025 LunchTicket.org. All Rights Reserved. Web design and development by GoodWebWorks.
Scroll to top Scroll to top Scroll to top