Sounds of Night
How very queer it is, evening or night, out alone in a clearing, open for lake or meadow, sans house or car or implement, horizons cuffed by blackened pines. Alone, as if a hundred miles from man or road—yet have it all around you, surrounding you. A droning noise is up in the sky, you see the lights of a plane. Down behind the trees to the left lights break out, zip an inch, and break back into the black void again. Cars on an interstate. Suddenly off our ear to the right is the panicked whirr of a siren, making its tense, nervous race along roads hidden somewhere beyond the hill. Hidden roads and houses beyond the hill there. Shrilling siren making its way forward, nearer. Alarmingly nearer! How close will it get? Somewhere before us, somewhere lost in the pine forest there. And dimmer—dimming into the forest.
Yet how alarming it is! And very queer. Man all around—cannot leave us alone! We can't see Him; He closes in, though. Can't see, yet He closes in. Sounds of night. Like a cage tightening round us, ringing around the trees like the trees ring around meadow or lake.
Our stomach drops, and is queer.
