Quiet, Again

[rejectomorph]

Everyone else slept all night, even the cat. I hung out with the moon. It seldom occurs to me to howl at it. The thought crossed my mind tonight, but I decided that it was best not to wake anyone. Quiet remains while I alone remain awake, and it makes the world large, and empty. My favorite dreams are those in which I wander alone through vast rooms that are dimly lit, and the sound of my footsteps echoes away into vague distances. The sky-domed, tree-walled night is the closest I come to living those dreams. If someone wakes, then I, too, wake- but into their commonplace world. And so the full moon must go unsung, at least by me. Somewhere nearby, but out of range of my hearing, there must be fields or forest glades where coyotes howl and bark. They used to come quite close a few years ago, but they no longer venture this far into the town. Maybe they learned not to wake the dwellers, too. I like to think of the coyotes out there, though, padding through the dry grass, drinking from the streams, sniffing at interesting scents in the brush, looking up at the bright orb riding where its light creates its own vignette among the thin clouds. Their piercing yelps rise to greet the moonbeams, fade among the dense pines, and the town sleeps on, undisturbed.