Night Sighs

A writer sits at her computer in the dead of the night. She is engulfed by the dark, the only illumination is the screen before her. Yet this time, this solitude, is where she feels the most comfort. This dark space when the rest of the world is shut down, asleep, tossing and turning in its bed, this is when her true spirit feels alive.

A clock is tick, tick, ticking. The glow of the screen lights up her face with an eerie, unnatural whiteness. Her fingers flash across the keyboard as the words flow out of her. Out of the depths of her mind, down into her fingers, moving into the keys and up onto the screen. Concentration sticks to her face like a too tight mask that is pulling her soft features into odd shapes and shadows. She does not look up.

Around her all is dark.

Around her all is quiet, except that persistent tick, tick, tick. She glances up at the clock. She lets her mind wander for a moment to all the people who might be up, awake, sharing this space with her? A nurse, hurrying down a hallway? A new mother soothing her colicky baby? Lovers moving together in a seductive rhythm? A paramedic rushing to the scene of an accident, siren on silent, lights flashing overhead? A taxi driver, sitting in his warm cocoon, waiting for his next fare, counting down the hours before he can go home? And She, the writer, engrossed in her mind, letting her thoughts ebb and flow their way out into the world.

She sits legs-crossed on her bench seat at her wide expansive, farm-style table. It dominates the room; she has positioned it this way on purpose so she can see out the large picture windows that surround her. During the day those windows show a view of native trees and shrubs. A garden that is allowed to grow wild and free with spaces to sit, soaking up the sunshine and bird call but here and now, in this sacred space all is dark. The night presses up close against the windows and seeps through the glass, leaching the coldness into the room. She has an old, frayed, much-loved blanket around her legs to compensate but refuses to get up and light the fire. She can hear the roar and crash of the waves, the beach is a mere minutes walk from her house and she stops and listens, with eyes closed at the sounds coming from outside.

A cricket. Chirp, chirping his nightly call. The boom of the waves crashing onto the shore, an animal’s heavy body thumping its way through her garden and that ever present ticking of the clock from its place high up on the wall. She returns her attention to the screen, perusing the latest musings. Her eyes scan her work, reading over the words she has written there. Her ears prick. Something, a sigh, perhaps a whisper, barely audible. At first she doesn’t seem to notice but her conscience is in tune with her world, she knows what to expect at this time of night and that…. that sigh…? It does not belong.

It comes again, faintly. This time she senses more than hears it and stops to look up and scan the room. Something…. something is different. She lets her eyes move over her home, touching each and every possession, searching into every shadow and space, seeking out the thing that doesn’t belong. Everything looks as it should. The sofa that she has turned to face the dead and cold fireplace, her books piled haphazardly on the table against the wall, her coat stand in the corner adorned with her many jackets, bags and scarves, her papers, documents and writings intermingled with the dirty dishes left over from dinner splayed all around her on her table.

Everything as it should be. But still a strange feeling creeps over her, a coldness, that something is not right, something is in fact wrong. She reaches out and picks up her wine glass, raises it to her lips and takes a slow mouthful of the red wine inside. The smell of the wine flares her nostrils as she breathes it in. The wine cool against her lips and tongue, feels velvety smooth as she swallows.

A bang makes her jump!

She laughs feeling foolish as she hears an animal jump across the wooden deck outside her front door. Slowly her heart rate returns to normal. Just an animal, a wallaby or possum maybe? They are always active at this time, many of them permanent residents in her native garden.

There. That sound. That sigh again, like a soft blowing out of air, the sound a woman might make as she arches her back in pleasure. It feels warm against the neck, a tickle, a tingly sensation as it plays across the exposed parts of her. The writer reacts as if she feels that sigh on her skin. Perhaps she does? There it is again, louder now and more pronounced. A definite sigh, a moan of a lover being held and teased and caressed. A soft touch. A finger running down over her spine, a kneading of the skin, goose bumps rising on the flesh, pushing against the soft material of her shirt.

That sigh.… A caress of the neck, her head turning as if in response and now the sigh escapes her own lips. She reaches up and runs her hands through her jet-black hair, pulling her hair up through her fingers as she stretches up and back. Her back arching, bones popping, her chest thrusting forwards, her shirt pulling tight, every pore feels awakened and open and is hungry for feeling.

That sigh…. It comes to her now, breathing its way into her mind, flowing through every part of her. Something stirs deep down inside her. Something old and timeless. Something that lies dormant but is now reacting to that sigh as if some old rusty switch is being turned on.

Suddenly she looks up. Her face is devoid of emotion. Her eyes clear, unblinking. She sits still and quiet, not moving, body poised and ready. She is listening to some ancient calling within her. She stays here as seconds tick by. Then a minute, then two, marked by the ticking of that damned clock. Tick. Tick. Tick. She places her hands on the table and slowly raises her body up from the seat. Her gaze is unwavering as she stares straight ahead. She is gone, the light in her eyes, that light that is you, is gone. There is a flatness that creeps across her retinas as if a shadow flicking across a moon. All is still. Even the clock seems to have stopped its eternal ticking. Slowly, slowly she rises, rises up. She moves. She moves out and away and around from her table and her life. Her writing is forgotten. Her keyboard lays before her untouched, the cursor flashing but unmoving. Her gaze does not leave the front door. With slow deliberateness she moves her body around her tabletop and steps out from behind it.

It is late. It is dark. She would never leave her house, her safety, her writing. But here she is moving, walking, each foot placed carefully down in front of her, propelling her towards the door. She reaches it and her hand comes out in front of her and grips the handle. And still her gaze does not waver. She does not look down. She does not need to, her hand has turned this doorknob a thousand times and it feels the same now in her hand as it always does. She turns it, it is locked but it turns easily and the door comes free and swings towards her. It takes little effort and the door is wide-open. The night is pouring into the house. She is standing now, still in her house and all its comfort but her attention is on something far away, looking out into the liquid dark that swirls around her.

Half in the light, half in the shadow.

She feels that sigh once more run over her skin. Down her back, over her buttocks, down the backs of her legs, curling around her ankles and toes. Like a cool breeze over hot skin it takes with it any leftover sense of self. It moves over her body and beckons her out into the inky blackness.

She has no resistance; there is no turning back. It has taken her.

She is propelled into the night beyond her door and disappears, a shadow moving in the shadows.

An empty doorway is all that is left, cold night air swirling around the warm room, curling around a computer that is still shining its light out into the emptiness. On the screen blinks the unmoved cursor, the words, black against the white of the computer screen, still shine and the last story from this writer is revealed there.

A story of a woman who sits in the dead of the night writing her last story. A writer who hears a sigh and is overcome with sensation and with dread. A woman who leaves her life’s work, her home, to walk out into the night, walk out through the shadows, walk over the dunes and down to the waters edge, the cold ocean lapping at her feet. Slowly she removes her clothes, letting them fall to the wet, crunchy sand, not noticing the waves pick them up and pull them out and away before she herself steps into the water, the spray and foam swirling up her legs and over her body as she walks.

Walks out.

Out into the ocean. Until She Is Gone.