The day slips away, first the reaching of shadows, then the dwindling glow across the broad horizon. The wind rushes past, touching everything it can. I stand beneath the fresh cool sky, working the last embers of the last of my birthday cigars, spitting smoke and dropping ash. I talked myself blue until everyone else surrendered to the hour or the weather, leaving me and my stink alone to the cats and the steadier of pests. Soon it was just me, keeping council with strays and stars. Worse things happen everyday.
It is that unsettled spring, unusual for the area, full of clouds and clamor that has me swaddled as though it were the fall in the mornings and breaking into the sunscreen in the thickest hours of the afternoon. Rain coming long after the rainy season was due to end, cold fronts dipping down to these less inclement latitudes. All the usual suspects suspiciously off their mark, like even the bit players have been replaced with their understudies, and we are veering clumsily off script every time we take the stage. It is no wonder that I am typically a solo act.
I need a shave and a shower, reeking of smoke and dog and sweat. The day has graced me with what blessings it had, and now all I am is affect and residue, the worn remainder of chore and habit. The night embraces everything, the penitent and the apostle and the mendicant alike. It holds us all, whatever our sins or just desserts. It holds us close, however lost or loved we might be. The night claims me in my rags and sad reflections, knows me as her own. That lonesome notion, that fitful dream. The only nation my blood is bound to, the only flag to fly over the fallen and the alone.
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