Son of Nightjar

Vastly improved...
*waves to Talia*


Nightjar

Listen. There’s the rustle of the freeway traffic. A nightjar squeaks resentment or alarm. The gentle tap-tap of another inhabitant trying to find somebody--or something--on IM. The fridge hums and the night flights to London come and go. The mongrel Labrador next door is rowdy; the neighbours let her obsess at the dark and imagined foes until about 11, then lock her up. In her absence the night hugs still closer to the brown drydrab earth. Someone has birds in a cage who complain through the night. Perhaps a gunshot will bounce over the valley, or the yelp of rubber on tarmac as ever-vigilant vultures await a cowboy or a teenager or a shredded businessman taking his guilt home from the beautiful lover to the pyja-mad wife, his mortgage and BMW his bank will own until just before it starts blowing blue smoke.

Taste. Four cigarettes left. Perhaps they will last until the unease congeals into a thought. No one approves of smoking; not her, not the Surgeon General. Hemmed in on every side, no breezes disturb the pall. Smell the carcinogens hanging sullen below the ceiling, idle and indolent.

See. It’s always a brittle sky in this winter of discontent. The stars coruscate more; how can that be?

Touch. They’re no hotter; they’re still far away. Almost as far as the green-eyed girl, who sits alone at work on a Friday night, tired and frustrated with numbers that don’t add up, puzzling over promises she needs to believe. She wonders why it's so hard to earn the simplicities of life most take for granted.

Venus hangs serene as she does most nights, cold and mocking, waiting for them all to see an answer hanging in front of them easily, as she does.