kryptonite

Mosquitoes buzzing in my ear more so that usual: I think it's going to rain. At 4 am I am making a bet with myself that, with the summer dawn this humid, I'm better off going downstairs, making coffee, and pretending it's almost morning. I get up from bed and walk slowly, barefoot; if I take big steps, I might step on a kitten. Anne and I have three. I look at the open window behind me, awaiting a slight cool breeze that never comes, and see silhouettes of the six other cats we own, all sleeping on the cool roof, just barely lit by lampposts farther afield. The cats know the cool spots. Right now, this room is not one of them.

If I tell you that work has seeped into me, draining me of life, that I constantly failed to be alive when it was time to blog, that wouldn't be completely true. The neighborhood my house is nestled in has gotten noisier. Prep school age kids scream at every opportunity. Their parent, singular, screams at them and leave them crying whenever possible. The house just slightly around the corner gets band-practiced every other afternoon. The same song. They never get better.

Where have those long quiet nights gone off to?

I used to have Saturday mornings when bird chirps chirped me awake, as I waited for my wife to come home. She works nightshifts. I write during the red eye moments of the day, when everyone is dead asleep. I still try to. But with my moods drained by coping with the noise, I always end up making hand seals, cursing the neighbors and wishing my hexes actually worked, instead of just my middle finger sticking out toward the direction of pointless racket.

Sometimes I wish I had lived in a dead town. I may still do. So many people to kill, just to get some quiet.