I’ve known some dark people, but no one perfectly black.

Even my goth-iest friends, the ones who swore that their insides were the color of tar didn’t come close. Not because they were posers, but because: hold a flashlight to the back of your hand and watch your palm glow red from the light. Skin is translucent. Even the darkest, most shriveled heart of the crustiest, most shriveled curmudgeon pulses with color.

Metaphysicists have said it for years, and physicists agree: everyone reflects light. We absorb very little of it. The sun, the hanging lamp in the kitchen, the candle at that restaurant, radiate light, and we give it back, re-formed in our own image. We’re all mirrors. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be able to see a damned thing.