Breathing

[rejectomorph]

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.