The Town with the Legend of the Blue Swamp

My hometown is an ordinary rural town, nothing more than a small dot on a map.
It is a place surrounded by mountains, where only the changing of the seasons tells you the steady passage of time.
A little way off from the center of town, there was a small, isolated swamp.
Though it had no particular name, it was a special place for the men in town who loved to fish.
It was known for having good-sized crucian carp, and on weekends, anglers would gather from out of nowhere to quietly cast their lines.

Right next to that swamp is a modest town-run campground.
When summer vacation arrives, a few families set up tents, and the sound of children playing echoes through the trees.
While attending university, I worked part-time as the manager of that campground.
I would collect fees at the reception desk and do some simple cleaning of the facilities.
It was a job that was, if anything, boring.
However, I didn't dislike the color of the sky at dusk, the sound of a campfire crackling, or the scent of the forest at night.
Until that mysterious night, that was my entire world.
I had no way of knowing that this swamp would quietly, yet decisively, throw the gears of my life out of alignment.

✅ I am a public servant, at the town campground

I was a lowly student part-timer, far too unreliable to be called a "manager."
Even so, the visitors called me that.
Since it was a job commissioned by the town office, the person in charge at the office would laugh and say that, in a broad sense, I was a public servant.
Not even a regular employee, just a temporary staff member.
The sound of those words seemed to accurately describe my own precarious position, and I let out a small, bitter smile.

There is almost nothing to do at the campground once evening comes.
Once all the visitors had checked in, I would usually spend my time reading books or working on university assignments in the small room of the management building until my night rounds.
That day, too, after watching the last family begin preparing their dinner, I was gazing blankly outside from the window of the management building.

It was the beginning of September, with the end of summer drawing near.
As if the heat of the day had been a lie, the evening air brushed against my skin with a chill.
The sun hid behind the ridgeline of the western mountains, and the sky painted a breathtaking gradient where deep indigo mixed with burning orange.
And as the color of the sky deepened, the outlines of the world gradually became blurred.
It was just an ordinary twilight.

Suddenly, when I shifted my gaze toward the swamp, I thought, "What is that?"
The surface of the swamp appeared to be glowing faintly.
At first, I thought it was the reflection of a campfire.
However, there were few visitors that day, and the tents using fire were far from the swamp.
Besides, it was clearly different from the reflected light of flickering flames.
It was a mysterious light, quieter and seemingly seeping from within.

It was a new moon that day, and of course, there were no streetlights in the vicinity.
The swamp, which should have been ruled by pitch-black darkness, was indeed emitting light.
Drawn by something more irresistible than curiosity, I opened the door of the management building and began walking down the path to the swamp in my sandals.
As I got closer, step by step, it became clear that the light was no hallucination.

✅ The legend of the town's blue light

Standing at the edge of the swamp, I lost my words.
During the day, it was a murky swamp mixed with dirt and dead leaves that could hardly be called beautiful.
Now, it was filled with a quiet blue light, as if another world were spreading out at the bottom.
It was not a gaudy light like a neon sign.
It was a lapis lazuli light, deeper, clearer, and somehow even feeling sacred.
The water surface was as still as a mirror, and the light flickered slowly, as if it were breathing.

The moment I faced that mystical sight, a distant memory sleeping in a corner of my mind suddenly revived.
That's right, I heard about it in a local history class when I was in elementary school.
The legend of the blue light passed down in this town since ancient times.
I'm sure it was a story related to this swamp.

The teacher said while showing us a copy of an old, worn-out document.
Once every few decades, on a clear night without a moon, this swamp emits a blue light.
That light is an auspicious sign that brings happiness, and anyone who offers a prayer to this light will have one wish granted.
At the time, no one took it seriously, thinking it was just a fairy tale for children.
I was one of them.
However, now, an unrealistic sight was spreading out before my eyes.
Perhaps the legend was not just a made-up story.

If, if a wish really could come true.

The moment I thought that, an emotion I had kept covered up and pretended not to see deep in my chest rose up as a hot lump.
It was my own secret wish, one I could tell no one.
A wound in my heart.
A modest resistance against an inescapable reality.

As if drawn in, I knelt at the edge of the swamp.
And, feeling the sensation of the cold earth in my palms, I prayed.
For that thing.
My one and only desperate wish.
With a voice that was not a voice, as if screaming from the bottom of my heart.
Please, please, I beg you.
If this light is real, please grant my wish.
It was a desperate prayer, almost like a curse.
How much time had passed?
When I looked up, the light of the swamp had vanished without a trace, and only the dark water surface remained.

✅ My mysterious life

What happened to my prayer that night?
Did the blue light of the swamp really hear my wish, or was it all just a hallucination I saw?
I do not intend to write the answer here.
There is only one thing that is certain.
From that day on, my life, for better or worse, changed completely from the roots up.

It was as if the path I had been walking on had suddenly been cut off, and I had been thrown into a landscape I had never seen before.
My boring but peaceful daily life became a thing of the distant past, and I was swept into a vortex of intense change.
It was the opening of a dramatic life that I had never imagined.
There were things I obtained.
I obtained something so great that I never could have expected to get it even if I had wished for it.
Its brilliance was more than enough to dazzle my eyes.

However, if the light is strong, the shadows also become deeper.
I learned through personal experience that obtaining something means losing something at the same time.
It was like an equivalent exchange.
To obtain something precious, I might have had to let go of something that was just as precious.
That blue light was not a convenient existence that would give only happiness for free.

Even now, I sometimes remember the swamp that night.
The quiet, mystical sight that shone in lapis lazuli.
Was that really a light that brings happiness?
Or was it the manifestation of something else entirely, reflecting the desires deep in a person's heart and demanding a price to grant them?

My life might be one grand experiment that began on that night.
An experiment to verify the truth of the legend with my own body.
And I still do not know the ending of that mysterious story.
I only sometimes feel a deep sense of nostalgia for my foolish and innocent self, who offered prayers on the shore of that swamp.

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