It was cold for a summer's night, even if it was quite literally the middle of the night. The thought flickered in John's mind that the new moon certainly didn't help, then realized with the speed of a corrected thought that it wouldn't do much to take the chill out of the air even if it were full. Then realized that the chill wasn't unpleasant, at least helped to make this night different than any other summer night. Aloneness wasn't unpleasant either, not tonight, alone beneath a tree in a small patch of woods in the park near the apartment he shared with other people. Shared the woods with the trees and hidden ignored life of the city, now. Hidden in the midst of the trees, he hoped. In the midst of this little park was sure to be just enough questionable activity to bring a police car or two driving by. Little activity, it turned out, though. The activity of night insects and a highway just within hearing range, but nothing else. Nothing to intrude, for once. Once john had gotten out here, he realized he had brought a book with him, a habit. He hadn't even planned it, just picked one up as he walked out the door with no real goal in mind for the night. No chance of being able to read it out here. Reading everywhere else out of the boredom that life and live people tended to inspire in him, and now with nothing and life that chose to ignore him surrounding him, not bored at all. A brief moment in his life, nothing that would affect him later, he thought, and yet a moment he needed deeply and deeply, a trip out of boredom and into no thing.
Written September 17th, 1998