"Goodnight, Moon"
At first, he thought it sounded like a bird. A high twittering sound that was somewhere between a tiny tambourine and a piece of shrapnel flying through the air.
He had just stepped out of his pickup truck after having gone for a midnight pack of smokes from the little all hours store in town when he’d heard it.
It was moving jaggedly through the dark air just above two of his neighbor’s houses across the street from him. The thing that struck him as most odd about it, was that it seemed to be directed at him. He didn’t know how he would know this, but it just did seem like that.
He’d thought as he headed to the mailbox on the curb that maybe he was hallucinating. After all, he’d just broken his vow to never smoke again, thus, the midnight trip into town. The sting of disappointment that accompanied such trips blending smoothly with the numbing buzz of the first cigarette in a couple of days. The combination of these two does make one feel a little off kilter.
He opened the mailbox and fished around inside it, gathering up the envelopes in the dark and heard the sound again. Definitely real and definitely closer. He turned to look half expecting to see a bat or some swift’s shadows whipping by him, caught as silhouettes in the amber of the streetlamp several houses down, but there was nothing. Just a warm, lazy November breeze that didn’t really have a particular direction, swaying first, the branches of the trees one direction, then another.
He thought how fitting the sound was. It was a beautiful night and the sound was not unpleasant. He actually found it mildly hypnotic and relaxing.
He began walking toward his house when it sounded again, only it was much, much closer. Surrounding him. He watched as the envelopes in his hands gently slid from them into the breeze like petals from a flower. So sweet the way they fluttered away, turning in the moonlight as he fell slowly into a warm place where he received a goodnight, butterfly kiss from his driveway, accompanied by the wonderful smell of honeysuckle as the lights winked out and the world grew perfect in it’s silence.
thanks for reading and critiques! (idk what happened to him, myself)
At first, he thought it sounded like a bird. A high twittering sound that was somewhere between a tiny tambourine and a piece of shrapnel flying through the air.
He had just stepped out of his pickup truck after having gone for a midnight pack of smokes from the little all hours store in town when he’d heard it.
It was moving jaggedly through the dark air just above two of his neighbor’s houses across the street from him. The thing that struck him as most odd about it, was that it seemed to be directed at him. He didn’t know how he would know this, but it just did seem like that.
He’d thought as he headed to the mailbox on the curb that maybe he was hallucinating. After all, he’d just broken his vow to never smoke again, thus, the midnight trip into town. The sting of disappointment that accompanied such trips blending smoothly with the numbing buzz of the first cigarette in a couple of days. The combination of these two does make one feel a little off kilter.
He opened the mailbox and fished around inside it, gathering up the envelopes in the dark and heard the sound again. Definitely real and definitely closer. He turned to look half expecting to see a bat or some swift’s shadows whipping by him, caught as silhouettes in the amber of the streetlamp several houses down, but there was nothing. Just a warm, lazy November breeze that didn’t really have a particular direction, swaying first, the branches of the trees one direction, then another.
He thought how fitting the sound was. It was a beautiful night and the sound was not unpleasant. He actually found it mildly hypnotic and relaxing.
He began walking toward his house when it sounded again, only it was much, much closer. Surrounding him. He watched as the envelopes in his hands gently slid from them into the breeze like petals from a flower. So sweet the way they fluttered away, turning in the moonlight as he fell slowly into a warm place where he received a goodnight, butterfly kiss from his driveway, accompanied by the wonderful smell of honeysuckle as the lights winked out and the world grew perfect in it’s silence.
thanks for reading and critiques! (idk what happened to him, myself)