That Night

That Night

Lying in my bed trying to get sleepy that night, reading to distract me from my worries. I heard the weirdest horn honk going by. It sounded like a bell, with a very bad cold, and I jumped up to see if it turned into any of the houses on my street. I would have loved to have seen the car, but it was gone.

However I had dropped the book and was now looking out the window, I just gave in, sitting down on my window seat to watch the night.

Everything looked like they were different shades of gray. Even the nearby trees lost their green to the darkness of the night.

Then suddenly the moon broke through brightly! It must have been hidden by cloud cover so thick it blotted out the whole sky. I hadn’t even noticed that I wasn’t seeing stars until the moon popped out. Now there were not only greens nearby, but reds and yellows, all kinds of colors, softened by the light of the beautiful full moon.

It didn’t last long, in less than a minute it disappeared behind the clouds again. Darkness came back as if someone had pulled the shade. Someone trying to get me to go to sleep, I whimsically thought.

So, I went back to bed, no book, no light, I lay in the darkness thinking about that moment of brilliant moonlight. I started looking at my worries as they were the clouds. I just had to wait, my light would come back. I just needed a break in the clouds. I went to sleep.

I think about that night often, it always calms me. It’s been forty years now since that night. I never heard that horn again either, sometimes I wonder if I just dreamt it...