Moonlit Night

I. Reminisce .I

         Trees rustle as raindrops plummet from the dreary clouds high above. Somewhere deep in the forest, wolves howl the first notes of their moonlit elegies. Drops patter off the porch’s roof and turn the driveway into a puddle of mud so expansive that it threatens to swallow my car whole. I hope that electricity still finds its way here, for the sunset was chased away by the storm and the remainder of my supplies are tucked beneath my passenger seat. I wonder if the storm has lingered in the backdrop all along, observing my yearly visit, conspiring to make this year as truly wretched as possible. It is somehow appropriate that I be confined in solitude on this last visit, forced to contemplate those thoughts that will surely drive me to where the path’s light cannot reach.
         I enter the cabin, examining the room from beneath my hair’s dripping tendrils. The cabin has grown solemn since my last visit, gray gradually encroaching where color once was. Dust carpets everything, rolled evenly across floorboards, sheet-draped furniture, and countertops alike. All of April’s pastel ribbons are missing from the ceiling and doorknobs, presumably taken to make the cabin more presentable to less colorful individuals. Being here is like meeting with an old friend only to find that hardship has stolen everything you used to love about them. Life seldom survives with melancholy as sustenance. This cabin appears to share my pain. I flip the switch beside the door and the bulb above reluctantly flickers to life.
         Why am I here? It isn’t the same without her. She always came here to see the wolves, yet I always came here to see her. I promised myself that last year would in fact be my last, a promise that I have broken many times before. Even as the old man handed me the keys with that somber smile of his, he knew that I was condemning myself to another anniversary in misery. I knew it too. This time next year, however, the cabin won’t be here. So perhaps this is my farewell: to the cabin, to the person I used to be… and to my April. Then again, I have celebrated nearly as many anniversaries with her as without, yet my memories of her remain ever pristine.
         I enter the kitchen and unceremoniously drop my bag onto the counter. The overhead light is still broken, the sink still sputters mud before yielding drinkable water, and the mark on the wall beside the stove now resembles a cigarette burn. Once upon a time, the mark was a cheerful little heart, carefully carved into the wood. A “flair,” as April would call it, the creation of which was one of her obsessions. If we visited somewhere to which she expected us to return, she would scurry about, leaving hearts, knickknacks, ribbons, anything really, so that next time we could spend a day finding them all. “They all say, ‘April was here,’” she explained. “It helps make memories.” I wish she hadn’t been so correct.
         All of the facilities appear to be working and the structure’s draft feels no worse than last time. Every one of April’s flairs appears to have been removed, though. Perhaps the only remainder of her here rests safely in the deepest fold of my wallet, a simple portrait of her gorgeous self. She possessed a heart-stopping natural beauty, but she felt that each picture somehow took a bit of it away from her. I never understood how a photographer could feel that way, yet to this day I have but one picture of her, upon which her beautiful smile is marred by the effects of caustic tears and rushing water. The poem that she had written me on its back has been smeared beyond recognition, and beyond memory.
         I enter the bedroom and light the kerosene lamp therein, introducing warmth to a realm otherwise frozen. What frightens me is not the desiccated leaves that bank in the corners or the thick cobwebs that stretch amongst the bedposts and furniture, but the fact that those aside, the room appears unchanged from last fall. Even the bedcovers lay haphazardly folded, as I would have left them. The air is thick with the scent of drenched oak, cherry, and pine, and little rivulets forge from the sill to the bench beside it, and into a crack between the floor and the wall. I remove April’s picture and carefully tuck it between a candleholder and pile of books so that her image might guard me in my slumber.
         The mattress barely sinks as I sit upon its corner. My heart begins to flood, and as quickly as I may bail, swallowing the tears and rubbing my eyes, my weakened will is quickly conquered. The tears burn with the world’s cruelties reflected within their crystalline forms. Surrounded by the withering remains of my past, my mask is mere shards before the rage of emotions left too long to ferment.
         Beckoned by a voice that I have come to know as despair, I close my eyes and lay my head upon the pillow, and forsake any attempt at damming the grief. Perhaps it is the result of the many hours spent driving, or my recent distaste for food, or the fact that I have not truly slept since my last visit, but shortly after my head’s descent into the pillow, time erodes and the world falls beneath the pall of darkness. Darkness cannot survive long, however, for it is from absolute darkness that light is born.

II. Mislay .II

         A noise jars me from sleep, grasping my ankles and dragging me from the cavernous void that is my solace. I sit up in bed, the boldness of my movements casting the covers off of me. The silence holds for a moment, before it is cut by a sharp scratching outside of my windows. I imagine the wind agitating a tree into scraping the cabin’s wooden shingles, but this theory is swept away by a simple realization; the storm has ceased. The rain no longer drums on the rooftop, and the wind holds its breath. With all caution not to violate the quiet that has befallen the room, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and place my feet upon the sandy planks. Even the squeal of the floorboards as I stand ripples the still like a stone cast into a pond.
         I creep toward the window, carefully choosing my steps amongst the leaves. It would not be so difficult, had the lamp not put out and welcomed the darkness back into my room. The moon is hardly able to glow through the thick haze formed upon my windows. This same haze prevents me from discovering the source of the raking. With the cuff of my shirt, I clear a pane and peer out at the water-mottled world beyond. Nothing stirs but the shadows of the nodding pines.
         I free the window’s latch without a sound. Ever-so-gradually, I open the window. I watch the blades of grass bob in the gentle breeze, hiding the crickets as they chirp intermittently. Abruptly, a shimmering gray mass leaps up beside me, planting its claws on the sill with a series of clicks. I yell and stumble backwards, practically catching myself on the air itself. A fair-furred wolf leans into the room, staring at me so intently that they inspire a sense of familiarity. Perhaps the creature catches the scent of my old admiration for wolves, or mayhap it is as equally shocked at my presence as I am at its, but for whatever reason or fair fortune, it does not attack. Instead, it looks upon me with a knowing not usually endowed to those of the non-human persuasion.
         At length, it lowers its head onto the sill itself and begins to beg me with wide eyes and tender whining. Not knowing how else to react, I cautiously approach, only to be startled when it drops onto the grass and strides into the field. It turns back to me.
         This wolf captures the moon’s steely radiance with its fur and moves with the grace and regality of a keen predator. It is the quintessence of April’s fascination. The expression as its tail swishes back and forth, and the way that it peeks coyly up to me, inspires a trust that would be foolish for anyone less mislaid. Not even bothering to bring the lantern, I pass through the portal, and when the wolf sprints into the night, I follow behind, trusting not to be led astray.

III. Perish .III

         The moment that I tread beyond the forest’s boundary, the ground rises until the scent of the leaves, dirt, and grass all loudly proclaim themselves to me. The needles and cones, and shrubberies and scrubs begin marching by more quickly than they rightly could. Wind tugs at my hair and buffets my face as everything continues to accelerate in passing. Air begins to flow around my form, for I am no longer human, but like a bullet, piercing atmosphere by control of an impetus unknown. Monolithic trees blur into black posts and the ground into an indistinct silver expanse.
         The wolf is a black speck on the horizon that wavers across my vision. Suddenly, it appears beside me in an instant of fizzling chaos. Its body moves in perfect time, legs like pistons, locomotive, every step rippling muscles beneath its fur, twisting, tightening, and releasing again as an opposing pawfall. We lock eyes for a moment before it veers off, and I in turn strain against the velocity to follow. The force is so intense that I do not turn, but the world itself tilts upwards, sliding rocks, hills, landforms of all sorts across my path, eventually disappearing as a distant rumbling deeper than thunder like they are falling from the world’s edge. I dare not stop lest I be carried away with the current.
         Rays explode from the horizon, losing the waif trees in the sun’s blaze as it gradually arcs across the changing skies. Clouds coalesce and evanesce and shadows spin like the hands of a clock. I lose myself in the confused intermittent cycles of light and darkness. Everything continues to rush past until it abruptly ceases. Suddenly, the entire world is empty. Silence is bestowed by silence. Only the wolf and I remain, for a moment flying across a featureless white plane. I wonder if shadows infinitely far ahead of us are in fact us, seen around the planet’s curve. The world abruptly rushes up from behind, dirt and rocks passing beneath my feet and a river spreading out in my vision ahead, rebuilding the world as I approach. Music flows and ebbs, lacing up reality again. Trees and mountains fall out of the sky. The ground drops away from me once more.
         Then, we arrive. The land is concrete again, which my wolf friend proves to me when it approaches the gurgling brook to take a few laps of the refreshing water. It is stunning here at the base of the gorge, brimming with groves of cheerful flowers, green grass, blended with an intoxicating mixture of fertile dirt and elegant pines. A maiden’s melodic voice teases my memory with familiar notes. My eyes discover the music’s creator dancing merrily down the path, a lovely—April? It is she, prancing toward me with her camera in hand and her pack over her shoulder.
         The wolf has vanished and I stand alone in awe of my beloved April’s perfection. Her smile is like a glimpse through heaven’s keyhole, its radiance washing away the tarnish of my years in solitude. Mere photographs capture no more of her essence than a child the visions of Shakespeare. Her auburn hair frolics in the breeze and her grace carries her lithe body proudly into the clearing. The way her delicate fingers work the camera’s intricacies fascinates me. The simple gesture of tucking her hair back leaves me breathless.
         In lieu of words, I approach, but she does not even pause in her quipping or flirtatious jesting with her guest, whom remained unnoticed to me until now. I reach out for her hair, her shoulder, or hands, but regardless of my distance, she is always just beyond my reach. My anger spits and snarls at the stranger. He is tall and handsome, but has a toothy grin that reeks of naivety. He obviously enjoys her presence, but there are definite moments when his eyes are not seeking her own, and others yet during which he speaks instead of her. How he wastes the presence of an angel! What terrible waste of so precious a blessing!
         It is in this moment of agony that the wind draws the shock of hair from the man’s face and a splotch of sunlight casts it aglow. It’s me! I remember. Once, there was happiness in my life. Once, I could smile with such naivety, without worry of pain or loss or the futility of life without purpose. In a year so distant now that it seems more a fairytale than truth, I was whole.
         April flutters this way and that amongst nature’s props, capturing the surrounding beauty with her trustworthy camera. My old self watches from the backdrop, relishing the sight of his fiancée enveloped in her special flavor of magic. I too smile, for the sight is glorious. I remember this scene, buried deep within the catacombs of my mind. Often, I remember moments in time, snippets like those that April collects, but the more that I observe the scene progressing before my eyes, the more that it surfaces to my recollection.
         I had twisted my ankle earlier that day, which is why I am leaning so heavily against the rock. I’m also not carrying my writing pad. We were planning to visit the brook for only a few minutes so that April might collect a few more images for her trip portfolio. I remember what is to happen next. She is about to exchange lenses, but one will slip from her grasp. My thoughts are enacted before me. The piece slips from her hands, falling amidst the dirt and twigs. As she retrieves it, frowning at the thought of marring her expensive lenses, a little white paper slips from the pouch only to be caught by a malevolent breeze that sucks it toward the stream. Suddenly, my mind reaches the scene’s end.
         No! I yell and holler and plead that she desist, but her ears cannot detect spectral voices, and she pursues. I dig my feet into the dirt, I frantically claw at the air, but there is no purchase. I may as well be a puppet, helplessly suspended by its own string. I yell at my other self, but he is obliviously leaning over to tend his ankle.
         April skips onto the rocks even as the veritable willow-the-wisp twists and twirls, finally ending its retreat with a plop into the water. Holding her pack and camera to one side, she precariously kneels on the disheveled, mossy rocks, and reaches forward with her free arm. The most terrible moment of my existence replays in the minutest detail. The other me is just now glancing up at the girl, but it has already reached the point of no return.
         April’s hair shifts over her eyes. Water laps over the stone, permeating and slickening the veil of moss upon it. Her fingers, with their glossy pink nails filed into those perfectly dainty tips, are mere centimeters away from the little white square. The sun glints off one of them, the sparkle gradually shifting across each nail in turn.
         Then, it happens. Her denim-clad knee slips from the stone that supports her. In one fell swoop, April careens forwards and the equipment strapped about her neck swings to the front, throwing even greater momentum into her fall. I watch as her arms spread like eagle wings, but there is no current to rescue her from the frothing doom below. To see her die again would be to tap my parched heart after fate’s cruel amusements have already been sated. I turn my face away in terror as much as shame, just in time to miss the sight of her camera disintegrating upon the rocks. The death of each shard and fragment is articulated in the utmost detail, followed by the most terrible of sounds imaginable.
         Bone crushing against stone, an eggshell cracked upon a counter top, the simple sound of an instant death. I can hear the blood flowing, her life melding with the waters, and the silence where hope would have bestowed a cry. Even being there to drag her limp body out of the stream did not fully inflict upon me the horror of her death so effectively as experiencing this. Discovering what she had lost her life trying to save, a picture that she was to give me on a morrow that would never come, would not stop me from reaching over each morning in expectation of finding her slumbering beside me.

IV. Awaken .IV

         Nighttime returns. For the first time since her death and the many of our life together, I do not turn to seek the comfort of her warmth. Instead, I study the ceiling above. It is as though I have awoken from the unknown sleep in which trapped all along. April is gone, not for now, not to return after another late-night darkroom session, but for the remainder of eternity. The world may have been created for man, but I have lost the only part of it created for me. Truly, her only remnant outside of memory is the picture of her, a gift given to me of greater treasure than she could have ever foreseen. I turn then not to my right where she would have been sleeping, but my left, where her eyes will be gazing upon me from behind the gloss of a photographic film.
         The picture! It’s gone! April! I leap from the bed and frantically scour the room. Nowhere! It’s nowhere! The covers do not cover nor do the shadows obscure that for which I search. The window is open and the winds mumble amongst themselves as though jeering at me. How could the world be so cruel to one already trodden so deeply into hopelessness?
         Water has puddled upon the floor, squeaking beneath my shoes. I cannot fathom whether they are raindrops spewn or sleep-wept tears. They are evenly spaced across my floor through the span between the sill and door. They resemble footsteps in a way, passing through the… the window… which I did not open last night. Someone broke into the cabin!
         I grab the lantern from its perch and hold it before me, for its glow did not cease as I had dreamt. Shadows lurch and swing and sway as I track the prints into the entry where their excess wetness fades and the outlines assume the distinct impression of a human foot unshod. A blue-white flicker momentarily illuminates the room through the slanted windows and the open door to outside. The rumble shudders the cabin and filters the air with dust both risen and fallen. The sight of the agape doorway strikes a chord of fear, but the prints ignore it and so do I, hunting them instead to where they pass through the cellar’s entry.
         April had at times secluded herself in the cellar where I could not join her. She would speak of the spiders and rats braved in dedication to her art and in keep of the only suitable darkroom in the cabin. I left her to her work, knowing that she would fare the vermin better than I, greeting her again when she arose the next morning with darkened eyes telling of a sleepless night.
         Did the intruder know of some sacred art overlooked in my hasty search? Was he pillaging undiscovered memories of my long-lost love? I grip the rail and slowly descend in the bowels of the house, with only the shrill squeal of the lantern’s rusty handle as my comfort. As I pass, the wood fades into stone and I can practically smell the sweat of many nights spent to fatigue. Soon, I will meet with the intruder and make him suffer for trying to take what little I have.
         The hallway ends and expands into the oddly-angled enclosure that rests beneath the cabin. I quickly shove the light into the darkness. It reveals nothing but the same decrepit cabinets, tables, and empty storage containers that have fallowed here for decades. Nothing is of great height, and from my vantage upon the landing, there is nowhere that someone might hide. The trail, however, was lost amongst the steps. They must have doubled back. Just before I run back up the stairwell, I notice a glisten upon one of the desks.
         Approaching in careful, tense steps, I notice that it is water, seeping from a slit that is barely visible even in my direct light. Reaching beneath the overhang, I tug upon a drawer that eventually relents with the unsteady grating of a rusty tract. There, sitting upon a paper completely drenched through, is a band of silver.
         I set the light upon the desk’s surface and take the band between my fingers, holding up to my eyes which squint to see it in the poor lighting. It’s a ring! Two intricately fashioned wolves enwrap paws and tails and are inlayed with script which under only the perfect light reads, “Forever bound by our passion.”
         I clench my fist so as not to drop it in my shuddering. I glance upon the paper that it had rested upon, and although it appears blank, my eyes widen still. A finger’s breadth away from the dry circle that marks where the ring was resting, another is found, but no second silver ring. My mind hardly dares to embark to the places that it wishes to be led. My stance falters, my breaths deepen, and my hands move to steady myself on the drawer.
         Now, my fingertip brushes against something more, tucked into the shadow of the drawer’s side. I take it and slide it out to where the light catches its surface. It’s her picture to me: the same stained and bled picture as I had feared stolen! An instinctual glance at the back, however, reveals that it is not quite the same picture as had been taken. What I had always deduced as a poem at the back does not reveal its true nature to me, but three words from separate columns of separate lines are no longer bled like the rest. Together, they profoundly read, “April was here.”
         I take the picture and grasp it and the ring both, and sprint upstairs, into the room, and through the threshold to the outside.
         “April!” I cry out, forcing my voice to its highest tenor so that it might pierce whatever distance lay between her and I. The sound of my voice echoes beneath the cloud cover, the final reverberation of which is met with a flash and thunder.
         Rain continues to pour, unparted by a returning form. The winds carry no answer to me. The trees rustle as trees always do. I open my fist and peer at the ring resting upon my palm, and the wolves that compose it, before slipping it onto my finger.
         Suddenly, something shifts in my peripheral vision. I turn to discover myself under the scrutiny of a silver wolf sitting beside the cabin’s door. It raises its head and howls triumphantly at the moon, then leaps to its paws and through a hole in the porch’s rails, splashing into the mud that strives not to muss its perfect fur. The wolf pauses to look back at me. Within its eyes, I see all the beauty of the past, a tender heart mourning my present, and all the hopes and dreams of my future. A long stream of mist rises from its downward-turned muzzle. “Farewell,” it seems to say, and with no further adieu, turns and pads away into the moonlit night.
         Finally, I understand what made April’s love more precious than any other’s. It was my own reflection that I saw in her eyes, mirrored through memory of all my kindest moments. All of my imperfections were forgotten there. In that reflection, I was perfect. In that reflection, I was whole.


Author’s Note: This is a rewrite of the original version, which was written many years ago.
The original may be viewed here: "Invalid Item" .