in the dark without a moon--
Walking on the damp road at midnight, I found questioning the world was useless if there was no way you would ever get an answer. Curiousity kills cats, they say. Well, it kills people too.
The road was silver and black, slick with rain that looked like ink in the darkened night, the stars reflecting silver without all the hope. The heavy air, cold and wet on my skin. There were no lights on for miles. Around me, the wild jungle of my repressed hopes and fears. The home to every part of me. My house lay far back in the distance.
I was so perfectly at ease in the silence. The night was beautiful, one of the most beautiful, and I found my solace among the stars. The far off howls of the jungle rang in the air, as welcome and familiar to me as the rain that began falling from above. I was soaked down to my skin, but I was warm down to my bones.
There came a certain suspense for me when a car passed by. The unatural sound of a roaring in the distance, tires pressing themselves over the wet road, the sound of a quietly growling engine. When I saw the headlights around the bend in the road, my heart began pumping. Faster, faster, until I could no longer take it. I jumped into the brush, feeling mysterious and so alone despite for the car, and watched as it passed by, faster than the rain. Sometimes I could feel it’s breeze when it left. When it was gone, I was no longer suspended. I felt safe.
Where did one go, in the darkness of the night? What did the car head towards? Was it racing for it’s life, gone to visit a dying family, or was it simply crusing to it’s next destination? I wandered. I waited. I was the one who walked the road aimlessly, content with the beauty of the night and the moisture in the air. I did not have a pointless desntination. I chided myself for thinking, for a moment, that I might someday follow that car. My heart belonged to the wild, unpredictable forces of intuition and instinct. I would not abandon all senses and chase a world unknown, no matter how I belonged to it, body and skin. I refused to be curious at heart, because curious was corrupting my home.
I look back at the jungle, so dark and still but so very alive. It was dying for curiousity. No human was wild at heart anymore. For a while, I let myself think that I was the only one who was.
At night the road is black.
But in the mornings it’s really red.
XX
A/N: This was meant to be a descriptive piece about the road (mankind) and the jungle (the animal kingdom), and a person who treads between the lines. I suppose it came out that way. Curiosity was what made those two things so indistinguishable in the first place. Comments are lovely!