Skip to main content

Long Night's Sleep

Even as a child, I was averse to sleep.  I was the kid in Boy Scouts who got out of his sleeping bag once I was sure everyone was snoring. The night whispers to me, even more so with a campfire.  The embers stay hot for a very long time, though thy may not appear so.  In the morning, all you'd have to do was stir up the dead gray ashes to find the glittering deep heat beneath.  Toss on some tinder and voila, fire is born again. At 2 in the morning, the flames were merely napping, easily aroused to continue their hypnotizing dance.  How many times did I crawl back into the tent when the stars began to vanish? How many times did I pretend to have woken early?

Sometimes I would walk the unknown wilderness while the world slept.  This habit has continued into my adult life.  Whenever I visit a friend in a new city, I inevitably find myself walking alone through the night.  One snowy dawn in Chicago I found myself at the end of the Navy Pier, silent and trackless but for my presence.  I've wandered Manhattan, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis (before and after I moved here), Kansas City, Indianapolis, Washington D.C, Anchorage, and country roads of Ireland that few tourists see.  There is a sense of solitude that cannot be found until almost everyone else is asleep. In the city, there is always life. Fireworks shots sound for three months after the Fourth of July, bartenders coming home, cats wailing at each other, and always and forever the drone of the highways.  

Winter nights are the best, cold air killing the sound in the air and icy conditions keeping all but those who must (or must not be told otherwise) away from the roads. When the only sound I can hear is the soft and steady crunch of my own footsteps in snow, I am almost in the distant mountains again. Truly the most solitude one can find is there on an old dead rock at midnight above the tree line. The night sky has its own voice, but there near the peak in my memory there is a fog - a literal cloud hovering around us, silencing too the stars. The silence was actually too severe for my liking, but it was and will remain the pinnacle of quiet in my mind. Night's hush is enough for me. Knowing I have stretched my consciousness further brings me pride, and I have no intention of going to sleep. 

At least, I didn't. Until the night that never ended, in which no one would awake.

 It was the night of my unraveling. I alone walked in the land of slumber as even the highways fell silent.  I watched helplessly as they all began to fade, and I began to hallucinate men made of shadows who fed on the sleepers.  At least, I hope I'm hallucinating...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Practice.

Artist! Writer! Practice your skills. Read something, pen something, sketch something still. Swiftly unraveled,  Long work to re-bind, The tenuous strands 'tween thumb, fingers and mind. Let not the dreams slip, Through unclenching hands. Guide them, direct them. Make patterns of sand. Pay no mind to mistakes, They belong, let them be. They're trees in the forest you're trying to see. Make ready your keyboard, Sketch paper and ink, You're readier now than you may ever think.
Post a Comment
Read more

Front Porch Ramble #5

The old man who lived across the street sometimes glared at Jeremy while he sat smoking, his lawn waiting very patiently for a trim.  In the 8 years he had lived here, he had never learned the man's name.  So long after moving to the neighborhood it would have been awkward to seek introductions.  Jeremy thought of him as a man with nothing else to do but dedicate himself to a nicely tended lawn and well maintained landscaping.  This was in part due to the spotless emerald carpet that left no doubts as to property lines, but also due to the 8 plastic cans in varying hues that appeared on the curb every Monday morning on yard waste day.  Without fail, Jeremy had never seen less than 3 bins out week after week.  He sometimes wondered if the old man was slowly digging out an in ground pool in the backyard, or perhaps something more nefarious.  No, there was the old woman, poking her head out to check on his progress.  This was real life after all, n...
Post a Comment
Read more

Front Porch Ramble #2 "No Warning"

Smoke got in his eyes and he cursed himself, drawing the attention of his faithful pooch. He tossed aside the cigarette.  On cue, the faint jingle and clicking paws drew up close in the dark, and a wet nose nuzzled its way under his arm.   "Hey there Jasper, I'm not done yet.  I'm just an idiot, that's all." Smoking while hunched over his drawing was never a good idea.  He closed the sketchbook on his pen and set it aside, ruffling the golden brown scruff atop the mutt's sturdy shoulders.  Jasper was the best dog he'd ever met, hands down.  From the first moment he came home the pup had exhibited a cool demeanor that gave the impression that he was thinking. Indeed Jasper had proven a most intelligent animal.  They had made a strong connection early on, in the days of Kelly's business trips and before the kids.  Jeremy had always thought of Jasper as his first child.  Jasper clearly had a similar mindset.  It had only taken about a week ...
Post a Comment
Read more