Silver Stuffing

Tonight was a colander, overturned and trapping the whole world—or maybe just half of it. A giant colander. I didn’t feel trapped.

The wind tore scraps of old stuffing out of old pillows and floated them down a river of atmosphere. The moon hid.

The colander did a fine job of simulating a pitch black sky with scattered pinhead stars, but as a colander I’m afraid it was out of a job. The holes were tiny or maybe just far away. In any case, they were not evenly spread and whatever water tried to escape would have a long, hard time doing so.

There wasn’t any water coming down.

A falling leaf, a moving branch. The sounds that used to set me in my nervousness only served to soothe me when they bathed in the cool silvery blue night air with stuffing clouds, all under a colander. There could be no vicious creatures, not here.

The wind let up for a second and I started to topple backwards, having let myself lean against it like the back of a chair.

I heard cars on the highway and an airplane in the sky.

I heard it before I saw it.

I heard it after I didn’t see it anymore.

A cloud swallowed it.

The sound followed its flashing lights, staying a few steps behind, but it too was eventually smothered.

The streetlight at the corner waited, lonely, glowing on.

Somewhere, there must have been an owl.

I didn’t see or hear one, but it was a good night for owls.