Night

Just past the witching hour, and I am dragging the trash bin out to the curb at 61 S. 5th Avenue for tomorrow's pickup. The plastic wheels of the bin rumble along the pavement. My shoes make a combination of a clicking and scuffing sound. There is a train horn sounding somewhere between here and Denver to the south. It will get louder with each successive crossing as it comes north to rumble through town as well.

It is cold as it is only early March. It would be colder, but a blanket of clouds hangs over the metro area as evidenced by the lack of stars in the blue-black sky. I have on a leather jacket perfect for this time of year, but even my bare hands and face are not bothered by the brisk air. I hardly notice the cold at all. 

The cold night air carries the warm smell of a far-off wood fire. It seems as if the darkness is a better conductor of both sound and smell. As I walk back up the walk, I ponder for a moment just how much that could be true, how much of it owes to there being few smog-belching, growling, clanging cars on the road, and how much is my imagination. 

Once back inside it isn't that I so much notice the warmth of the house as it is that I now notice the absence of the chill on my face and hands. I scramble out of the jacket and find its hanger in the front closet. It's just cool enough in the house now that I leave the rest of my clothes on, including the soft, warm cashmere cardigan I am wearing. There is something about the night that already makes me feel unfettered anyway. A certain freedom comes over me that is not there during the day. With the whole rest of the world in bed, I have the feeling that I could completely disrobe if the notion overtook me. I could pick my nose or rob the bank down the street or rob the bank in the nude while picking my nose were I so inclined. I am not, but the feeling of it remains even while my clothes stay on.

I come back to the nest I have built for myself on the couch, throwing an afghan across my lap. My books and journals are piled around me, not so much as a fortress wall, but as the lint and papers and feathers that a bird uses to line its nest. Next to me a book on fiction. At my feet a book on writing software. In front of me several journals, a fountain pen, a mechanical pencil that is a pleasure to hold, a highlighter, an eraser. Other detritus of the night clutters the end table: my wallet, another highlighter, a used one of those plastic flossers for your teeth, the ubiquitous USB cord. The lamp on the end table at its peak brightness.

The only sound in the world is the clock ticking on the mantel. If my wife existed I might even be able to listen closely to hear her soft breathing in bed, She was gone though before the mantel's clock showed ten though, the only evidence of her now another throw crumpled in the place she had dozed on the couch.

I am completely alone in the world, but it feels okay to be alone at night. There is no loneliness because there is no one to miss. No one to share my thoughts and ideas with except for this page, and that is all that is required. 

Daytime, my nemesis, will come and I will be alone, alone, and exposed. The people and the cars and the clouds will all reincorporate. The worry and stress and confusion of the light will re-emerge. And if I am lucky, I will get a free hour to pull close the black-out curtains and slide my nude body into the sheets, close my eyes and dream that it is night once again.