The Morse Code Signal Light I Still Carry Though I Rarely Use It
The Morse function was not involved. It was just a light.
That is usually how these things go. The feature that gives it a little identity is rarely the reason it gets used. I have never needed to send a complicated message across a dark field, and I am not keeping it around for some imaginary emergency that requires knowing a code. The blinking mode is mostly a button sequence I have to remember. Still, the fact that it can signal has kept the light from feeling like a generic little flashlight that will eventually be replaced by the one already in my phone.
It started as a curiosity. I had been reading about simple signal habits, the kind people used before everyone carried a bright screen with a dozen ways to contact somebody. Morse code seemed oddly practical and oddly unnecessary at the same time. A short flash, a pause, another short flash. There is something satisfying about a message that does not need a network, a speaker, or much equipment. I tried tapping out my initials against the wall while waiting for water to boil and immediately forgot the pattern.
The light stayed on my key ring anyway.
A key ring is not really a pocket, but it has the same limited-space problem. Every extra thing announces itself when the keys land on a desk or knock against a car door. The signal light is small, but it changes the balance. The ring no longer lies flat. It catches on the edge of the little coin pocket in my jeans. In winter, when I have a coat on, I barely notice. In summer it becomes one of those objects I consider removing every few days and then fail to remove because it is already attached to something I need.
There are stretches when I use it several times in one week. I find something behind a desk, look for a dropped screw under a seat, or get home late and use the narrow beam to fit a key into the lock without shining my phone directly at the door. I have used it while carrying grocery bags, holding it between two fingers because setting everything down feels like more work than it should. The light is not powerful in an impressive way. It is simply close at hand, and that is often enough.
Then it can go untouched for a month.
The signal feature has been more useful as a reason to keep the light than as a method of communication. I have used a few flashes to get my daughter’s attention from the other end of the house when she had headphones on. I have blinked at my wife through the window when she was in the driveway and I did not want to call out. Neither situation required Morse code. A light appearing and disappearing is sometimes all the message needed.
Once, during a brief power interruption, I found myself sitting at the kitchen table with the little light pointed toward the hallway. The outage lasted maybe ten minutes. There was no drama to it. The refrigerator clicked off, the house got quiet, and everyone waited to see if the lights would come back. I used the signal button by accident while trying to turn the beam down. The flashes moved across the wall in a slow, uneven rhythm. My daughter asked what I was doing, and I told her it was Morse code, though I could not produce anything more complicated than a few letters. We made up a message that amounted to “come here,” which she ignored because she was comfortable where she was.
That may be the closest the feature has come to fulfilling its intended purpose.
Mostly, carrying it has changed the way I think about small lights. I used to keep one in a desk drawer, which meant it was available only after I had already decided to go look for it. The key ring light is there during the little moments when I would otherwise improvise. I use the glow from a phone, the light over the stove, or the screen of the car stereo. Those work, but they are awkward in a way that is hard to explain until the small light is present. It can be held in my teeth without worrying about a screen, aimed into a narrow space, or left standing on a shelf while both hands are occupied.
There is also something about the button that has become familiar. I know how it feels through a coat pocket. I know the slight delay before the light comes on. I know that if I press it too quickly, I will get the blinking pattern instead of the steady beam. That happens often enough that I no longer feel annoyed. I just press again.
Sometimes it migrates. For a while I kept it in the pocket of my work bag because I was tired of the keys making noise at my desk. Then I would arrive home and realize I needed it in the car. Later it went back on the key ring, where it belongs in the practical sense, even if that makes the keys a little heavier. The bag was a reasonable location, but it depended on remembering the bag. The keys are less elegant and more reliable.
I still do not practice Morse code. Every few months I look at the little card I made for the common letters, convince myself I will remember it this time, and lose the card. The light’s signal function sits in an odd place between useful knowledge and decorative capability. It is not entirely pointless, but it is not earning its keep in any measurable way either.
That has not been enough to remove it. Maybe because the light has become attached to a few small routines: unlocking the back door after taking out the trash, checking beneath the car seat, finding the edge of a dropped piece of hardware, making a quiet flash through the window. The Morse setting is part of its character, even if the ordinary beam is what I reach for.
Some mornings I notice it when I pick up my keys. The ring feels slightly wrong without that extra weight, which is not a strong argument for anything. It is just the kind of small wrongness that makes a person put an object back where it was.