I found myself remembering the first nightlight that I had in my childhood bedroom, depicting Pinocchio and a goldfish. Perhaps there is only one image of it on the internet, but DuckDuckGo nonetheless led me quickly to the website of Jack’s Mart, a store in Japan that specializes in 20th century Americana. Whoever writes up their item-description pages puts some real care into it, enough for search engines to send me to the Jack’s Mart page about the nightlight.

I was especially delighted by the attached image, which demonstrates how dimly the light shone when it was plugged in; that vague orange glow was all you got. I had a few night lights like this as a kid, all fashioned from a weak bulb behind a chunk of white plastic with stuff printed on it. This resulted in a small, dim, irregular blob floating in the darkness of my room, not recognizable as anything, and illuminating nothing beyond itself. And still, its presence was a comfort.