Breathing

Once again, the moonlight is filtered by dense cloud, so that night is suffused with a pale glow. Everything can be discerned -- the silent houses, the still trees, the pavements, lawns, and flower beds, and even individual mulberry leaves which have fallen to the ground -- but each familiar sight is transformed to something strange by the dimness. The world resembles its own ghost, or perhaps this is the way the living world would look to a ghost -- faded and insubstantial, like an exhalation of breath into the cold air. The thing that convinces me that there is nothing ghostly here is the strong smell of the damp pines. No wraith of pine could exude so sharp a scent, nor could my ghost perceive this olfactory delight. Neither the weight of marbled sky nor the dark tapestry of the landscape carries such energy as does that resinous vapor floating in the air.

Rainy

When it rains here, the clouds often come right down to the ground as fog. Nearby treetops will turn vague, like background objects in an old photograph. The cloud drifts in puffs -- cloud within cloud -- and the faded world is filled with the sound of dripping water. Day passes to night without a hint of sunset, and the cloud can still be seen drifting by in the beams of light spilling from windows. This would be a good night for wearing a trench coat and fedora. I could wander through the damp and maybe stumble across a dead body or two. But I lack those items, as well as proper footwear. Rather than go out and soak my Rockports, I'll stay in and maybe catch up on e-mail. I'm unlikely to find cadavers around here, anyway, other than the usual road kill. Who murdered Mister Squirrel? That shady cowboy in the pickup truck, I'd say, or maybe the soccer dame in the SUV. Nope, there's no drama in that. E-mail it is!