Firefly night

The wind curled, just as hair does, about the empty, unlit streets I eroded as I roamed under the blind sky. Its orchestra of natural song, so varied in tone and melody, would gain strength for what seemed minutes at a time before subsiding and again start with a whispered tune. Its growth made all the house elements come alive with sound: the creak of ancient wooden gates, the squeak of metal weathercocks, the stuttering of glass, the rasping of vegetation. Even animated life, praying aloud for respite from the touch of angry nature. Yet perhaps what I believed the joint orisons of the metropole of mice had rather different meaning -- nature's gentle way of asking for solitude while it discovered, lived itself alone. I'd not desist, only defy, a nutcracker of flesh and blood.

I pushed deeper into the dark, fashioning myself a mantle out of it, letting it soak up my fears. But my deepest fright remained impassive to the warmth of night: it lived too deep within my marrow, armoured in ivory cataphract and surrounded by red blooded plebs, kept in check by sinewy whip, enacting his every move. I dreaded to never see night again, unpolluted by the light we shine upon it to try see it more clearly. No. It must remain shrouded in itself - to see its mystery we must not violate it.

A hundred more steps brought me face to face with Night's answer, it told me I was wrong. It was the streetlights, those old-fashioned cages of glass and iron, windows to the four corners of the earth for the imprisoned firefly within, motionless, burning a steady flame that sought to illuminate nothing but itself. Its quiet burn made the night about it darker, truer still.

Life quietened about me, and my pace became the metronome of my musings as I found home again. When I set out, I thought I could defeat the night, make it miss me more than I missed it. Instead, I walk it every night, if not in action then in thought.