Click. Click. Click.
The computer's backlight is starting to feel oppressive, tunnel visioning all my attention into this brightest thing in the darkening room. But I click on.
I've looked forward to evening [and its promise of silence and stillness] all through the animated hours of this living day. But now here I sit, wasting dusk and done with knit brows and a wrinkled nose, surfing through blogs and comments that leave me shaking my head.
I drag my eyes across the room, focusing finally on the tall, wide living room windows. Through that glass, blue clings to its space between the tree branches, cooling into a more subtle hue as the sun bows out of this day.
But in here, the refrigerator hums. The dog snores. The computer fan goes on.
I drain the last of my lukewarm tea and open the front door.
I bring my notebook.
A spider keeps silent watch over the front porch, still and alert in the center of a web strung between wrought-iron curlicues. The cardinal nesting near the house corner scolds her goodnights. A bat darts overhead. I pull my hood over my chilly ears and sit, breathing in lilac scents and traffic sounds.
I write until I can't quite make out the words dripping from my pen.
This is just what I wanted to do.
But then my butt starts getting cold and I remember that I didn't bring the baby monitor outside. I'm kind of hungry anyway. I open the door, go inside, turn on the lamp. And I see the words marching across my page – neat and regular at first, then progressively larger and spaced further apart as the light ran out. The last sentence is merely a series of indentations pressed into the paper – my pen had run out, too.
I trace my fingers over the page. There's no ink. But I can still feel the words.
