Painting

Despite the loud thumping of music and the shouts of the revelers in my ears as they strive to make themselves heard to one another, I feel my eyelids growing heavy, filling up with the sand that calls me to sleep.  I grab my coat, say my goodbyes and excuse myself from this cocoon of noise and heat and head out into the night.

The autumn night is cold and damp.  A mist hangs in the air from the earlier drizzle, clinging in its seclusive groups around each streetlamp and pinpoint of light like millions of little microscopic fireflies, making the night appear as hazy and smudged as I feel.  The dark and the wet pull me close and wrap its arms around me, and fill my lungs with their sweet refreshment.  The sounds of the street around me feel faint and muffled, almost distant, while the wet sound of grit and concrete beneath my feet scrapes against my eardrums in loud contrast.  I am in that little sliver of time between late and early.  The world feels thin, and if I step too hard, I might fall through.

I turn up my collar and scuff my way up the street.  With my hands in my pockets and my breath puffing out in front of me, I turn at the corner and briskly move in the direction of home.  Like sun after sun setting behind me, I pass under street lights and watch my shadow sprout from a seedling to a great oak, dying out in the oncoming glare of the next light.  At each street crossing, the red lights wash across the wet asphalt in splashes and shades of sunsets, and each curb makes me feel like a diver jumping from a cliff.  The puddles in the street gutters reflect the inky night sky above me, turning them into deep canyons.  Like a giant, I leap them in a single step while the canyon dwellers run for cover.

A few more streets down I come to the corner of the park, and I stop.  I stare straight ahead for a moment.  The gears in my head are creaking and groaning, trying to form thought in my sluggish lump of a brain.  My eyes let the world go fuzzy while I concentrate, straining to coax the thought out from under the bed of my consciousness.  It finally peeks out and licks my hand, and the world snaps back into focus.  The thought is thrust into the spotlight, and I take in a cold breath and look around.

I look back the way I came, across the street and into the park.  I look down the street towards home, and I realize that there's no one around.  Not a single person.  Not a single headlight of a car.  No movement except for the timed changing of stop lights and walking signs.  It's so quiet that I can almost hear them click as they change, moving like a wave ahead of me as they go from red to green.  I am the only one here and the world is mine.  The city is leading me home.  I follow the beckoning lights, allowing them to pull me along, like a lover looking over their shoulder and pulling the other by the hand. 

I finally arrive home.  I stagger inside, feeling like a marionette held up by only a single string as I allow my coat to fall to the floor and slip off my shoes before lifting the covers.  They feel as heavy as a lead apron in my tired arms, and I tumble into bed.  Pulling the covers over my head I break through the thin surface of the world and fall into a dark forest of slumber.