Had the night worn any further, would it reach the marrow?


     I sit here smoking my last cigarette and listening to 
classical music in a city full of light. Actually a suburb. There
is a streetlight on either side of the window as I look out and
across the lawn. I recall the night as it once was to me.

	I was stranded there in the midst of nothingness; I may as well 
have been tied to something because I could not move. I could not
go in any direction or know what any direction was. There was no 
moon and there were no stars. It was a cloudy night, and I was in
a clearing of the forest. And I was afraid.

	It drove me crazy --or near enough so. To sit there and not 
know. Not even hear the animals breathing around me. I gripped 
the grass.

	I held onto the grass around and beneath me because it was the 
only thing I was sure was alive, including myself. I was --am-- 
completely uncertain how I got myself into such a predicament. 
Alone in the forest without so much as a match. Without so much 
as a cigarette. It was enough, though, not having anything, to 
make me reflect upon life. To grip the grass and to  not know. I 
sat there. I sat there and I wished someone would come along.

	I knew there was a road within five or ten steps, but then I 
knew that if I took the five or ten steps and I did not get to 
the road I would no longer know how far the road was from me. it 
was just a path, really, that cars sometimes used when they got 
this far into the mountains, this far into the forest, this far 
away from...anything.

	It's unimagineable the aloneness. When there is no sight, no 
sound. Most people think the woods are noisy at night, that there
are crickets and animals moving, and all manner of other noise. 
People think you can hear the leaves falling off the trees. All I
had was the sense of touch, and, after awhile, sitting alone with
no other senses, you don't even believe in the sense of touch 
anymore. You wonder at the feebleness of the ability to feel. You
get to know what you can feel, but you wonder if it's still the 
same colour.

	And people think it's relaxing and easy to spend the night in 
the forest by yourself. What they don't realize is that everyone 
clings to something and most people cling to the light. Some 
people love the night, they cherish the night, they yearn for the
night and for the winter when the night is longer. What they 
really are yearning for is a patch between two points of light
where they cannot be seen, yet they can see. Where they can 
observe. Yet they are always free to rejoin or conjure light at 
will.

	I tried to recall the things that I had seen that day. Just to 
see if I could remember what they looked like. I could, but it 
was as though I was looking at a picture, at a two-dimensional 
"something" in my mind. The things I remembered seemed to grow 
more transparent the more I tried to pry into the memory. I was 
probably more afraid than anything else, and that was causing me 
to perceive in this way.

	And, eventually, I do know that the dawn came. And, eventually, 
I do know that I found the road. I do know that I walked down 
that road, and I got back to civilization. To the place that I 
had come from. I do also know that I looked so desperately to see
that place. The lights from the city and all its inhabitants 
reflecting off the clouds. I really wanted to see it that night, 
not so much for the people, but to know that there was something 
else out there.

	Here I sit in front of the window, having smoked my last 
cigarette, looking out into the night. I am noticing the 
streetlights and how the city lights illuminate the sky all 
around so that not many stars can be seen. I find I cannot see 
them now; it's overcast again.

	People are afraid to walk in the streets at night. People are 
afraid of the shadowy spots that other people hide in. People try
to walk in twos and threes. And they take self-defense courses, 
and carry weapons. But they're still afraid. And they call it 
dark.

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