Elsewhere

A thin slice of moon hangs westward for a while as the sky turns dark, and then it settles among the pines. The crickets chirp and the air fills with the scent of skunk. Later, sitting in my room, I hear raccoons sniffing about in the front yard. The wild plum bush has long since been dug up, so they have little reason to linger here. I probably wouldn't be lingering here myself if I had another option. On my evening walk, I wanted to keep going, past the edge of town, through the forest, down the river, across the valley, until I collapsed from exhaustion somewhere closer to the ocean. Even though the days are a bit cooler now and the nights verge on crisp, this is still no place to be in August. No wonder the skunk stinks it up. Even he wants to be somewhere else.