Eve

The sun sets early in the wintertime. Just when we need the warmth most, it is given sparingly. A body with a day job would harldy feel true sunlight on the skin. It's just as well, though. The the sun is only beautiful in birth and death. Who cares for its lifetime? Born on a cushion of nascent pink clouds, it arcs ever-higher in hopes of snapping its umbilical cord from Mother Earth. But it is not to be. It sweeps downward to the opposite horizon, spouting its mortal purples and red.

The rubber soles of my slippers tapped lightly on the concrete walkway, accompanied by the muted clicks of my companion's nails. It was 6:13 in the afternoon, yet the night sky had already smothered the sun. We came to a street corner. The white street lamp hummed directly overhead. Not a car or body in the night air.

My dog sat, complacent with the silence, on the grass bordering the street.

So this is Christmas Eve.

Everyone is snug, nestled, burrowed in their respective homes, next to their warm hearths, the scent of transplanted pine filling the air.

I would hate to be homeless. I blinand I see two spotlights in the distance and they disappear and reappear as the front of the car is jostled by the paved landscape and the car rushes by the two observers and sounds much louder than it really is and vanishes over the hill. Exhale. The moment is over. A Car disturbed the transparent gel surrounding my scene. Homeward.

Will it come again?