Darkness

These are the murmurings of darkness, of the dim light day after day as Earth tilts with Buenos Ares toward the Sun. 

Claws scrabble against the night window. A cat clings to the sill to capture heat escaping through the cracks. A Pecan smacks the tin roof, rattles down and hits a stone. It promises breakfast for the squirrels and for  white-winged doves, who promise as much to the cat.

One wonders where the opossums go during this weather. Their short fur and naked tails offer scant protection. The answer comes. Remember how enormously fat the downstairs possum got eating the cat’s food last fall? They, unlike us ignorant members of the human species, are curled up in a sleepy ball somewhere weather-tight. We humans prefer to suffer. We cannot afford to hibernate. There is money to be made, egos to be assuaged, laws to be enforced. Wars to be won, criminals to be executed, minds to be domesticated to the tune of cogs on a gear, independent souls to be shamed into conforming to the rules of slavery.

Dawn begins with bits of dirt on the hard wood floor and dark mud scuffs on the rugs. The spoor backtracks to the front door. Keep jackets and hats on that rack right by the door. You’re going to need them. Cold, damp vapors seep into your bones out there. The crunch is gone as you walk across the front yard. Sycamore leaves no longer crumble. They are wet, pasted against each other in sopping piles. They begin to rot, and therein lies Persephone’s promise of swelling seed and the scientist’s prediction of coming spring. Bend over to lift a pecan. They are still falling. Three months after the November beginning. The nut presses your fingertips, sending chills through your numbing fingers, up your arms and into your spine. You hunch. You stride rapidly to the door, track in the wet prairie soil and toss the pecan into a plastic bin. It rattles against its fellows. A stinking flame bursts from the match. Open the red lever, try not to breath as the gas flame flumps into your eyebrows. Huddle and shiver, waiting for warmth to build down from the ceiling.