Trouble with ghosts. One can’t ever tell at what unexpected moments they may return.
That old feeling creeping up at times, that’s okay. It’s when it settles in like a comfortable cloak around your shoulders that begins to matter. Then, the night darkens and you wonder if that was really just an owl screeching outside. Your gaze takes in the firewood by the hearth. Such a small pile. Just a few logs. Why hadn’t you brought more while you still had the light?
Of course you could go now again. It isn’t far. The wood pile stands just back of the garage, near the edge of the forest.
Or, you could just use the little wood that’s left and let the fire burn down. You could go get more in the morning. Just go to sleep a little sooner tonight.
That sound again. Just the wind? Strangely, an old song keeps running through your head.
My mother had a maid called Barbary,
She was in love, and he she loved proved mad
And did forsake her. She had a song of “Willow,”
An old thing ’twas, but it expressed her fortune
And she died singing it. That song tonight
Will not go from my mind.*
October traditionally haunts us. Old wren song of the harvest going door to door. Death folding into life and all the roses losing ground against the frost. We leave our friends and huddle in. Huddle in. Stand against the fire’s warmth, even as it fades. Leaving sounds outside as light fades against the stilling.
Inside, the crackle of the fire. Outside maybe owls. Maybe more. Thinking of ones we have known. Friends at home now. Gone to bed or huddled against their own fires. Or long ago fires.
Be not disturb’d with my infirmity:
If you be pleased, retire into my cell
And there repose: a turn or two I’ll walk,
To still my beating mind.**
Except that a turn or two would first open that door into the dark. Going outside. How cold is it out there anyway? Was that the same sound? Farther off? Maybe it’s going away. Maybe it’s not. Waiting.
Guess I’d better get to bed. The blankets will keep me warm. Keep me safe?
Now the hungry lion roars,
And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.
Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud.***
As many ways to lie in woe as there are people on the earth. Yet, tonight it’s that special feeling once again. The familiar one. The devil you know. Feeling that it has all been a fraud. Really no place for you in the world. Spending all those lonely years not really fitting. Not belonging. Lonely years stretch ahead. Corridors. Work, passions, human relationships, all pitchers full of spiders, tilting on the wires of your ever beating mind.
Just the wind. If you opened the door now, it would be only leaves, abandoning their hosts and leaping into the whirling dark. You aren’t afraid of them. You might join them. Leaping into twisting shadows striving aslant across your path. Disappearing into not so soundless night.
Just go to sleep. Balm your hurt mind.
Just sleep.
Sleep.
* Othello
** Tempest
*** A Midsummer Night’s Dream
