A Scream In The Night

A scream pierces through the night. Was it from out there in the world...or in here, under the covers of this full bed? I see a lonely woman in the night, hiding under a thick blue sleeping bag, winking away mosquitoes and night time animals and dreams that come with sweat, panting like they have only heavy love to spread. Did it come from me, that full octave resonance with bells of fear and pain and the things that have fallen through therapy cracks and tender kisses. From me? This sleepy body alone in a square room, the moon coming through barred windows while little girls sleep upstairs.

I hear it again, a long extended piercing note, high and shrill, a raven’s bell topping it off.. My eyes are open in the dark, seeing the shapes that wait silently for the sun to rise. For do they exist without sight? I walk towards them, yes, pulling the blankets back and all the barriers of many fabrics and weights. These are the walls, made of skin and plaster.I hold tight to the edges of the desk. It exists without sight, for I touch its smooth edges. A caress so euphoric that I feel the shelves start to shake. This surface that I touch, it is the night in its shapes. Long and dark. Thick and flat. Cylinders that wait for a hand. It is the light of the moon that streams in through the window. It is the world, shaped and compressed, formatted for use.

It is all so sharp, so perfectly clear, carrying with it all the world and all its people. I strip, letting the white panties I wear drop to the carpet. There is nothing between me and it...you...all that is there. Opening the door to my bedroom, I step onto the icy cold tile floor of the kitchen. To the right is the doorway to the garden and its impotent gold lock. I move slowly though the kitchen of obstacles. Boots left and forgotten, tripods and old computer parts. I move slowly though the minefield, my body tense with the expectation of pain.

The potted house plant senses the movement, somewhat irregular in the night. It calls to me, asking my plans. “Don’t worry,” I think to it, “I’m moving towards the moon, it has a secret to share.” The naked animal moves, a siren has gone off in the world of foliage and earth and they talk so loudly between themselves I think I might have broken some firm rule, but I keep moving, letting their chatter cover me like silken blankets from another world.

The door opens, almost without a touch. I have arrived. The moon begins to shine brighter, pulsing to a beat the flowers begin to hear. A gentle swaying begins. Grass, the hydrandrea bush, the deep purple succulents that open like a woman to the night’s light, the growing catnip shrub, still an infant. They all bop up and down, grooving to the ecstatic bass of the moon, the light at the center, the DJ for the garden, grown from the stars and the waves miles in the distance. I move by impulse, my head moving up and down, my chest pumping up, down, up, down, up down... to the rhythm my ears cannot hear. The sounds bypass my ears, going deeper in like a straight line, going through organs and bones, finding other spaces and doorways, moving for miles, beyond measurement into the world of the time-less where sound is just another kiss from the clouds, where rain come in like ecstatic bursts of strawberry flavor and piercing screams.

“Wait!” something seems to say. I stop, listening for the threat of an explosion. “Wait!” I look around, searching for a mouth and body, looking for something. Is it me? My voice? Another part of me that runs always behind, desperately running down the street in flip-flops and a tattered robe, waving my arms and reaching for the endless rope of tug-of-war.

I remember this night. This game, no, not really a game, but something like it resembling life. I remember now, doing this once before, dancing and swaying, bopping until I heard the call, and then I stepped away. I walked back into through the door, finding the kitchen tiles cold as ice, finding the abandoned panties and the luke-warm bed waiting for something to snuggle.

I remember, it was the sound of an explosion. A scream at the center that awoke me. The moon at the center. Those little pink dancing flowers that call for a partner. I had arrived in the garden, an active participant at the party, the orgy lacking tangible kisses, but reeking of sex fragrant earth. It was all skin and matter, so much so that I thought I might cry, but the thoughts absorbed into me and became new blood. The new rivers burned so bright and long, so sharp in their stinging life that I just had to swing my arms through the blackened night. Those fingers, stuck to this naked white body leaped as much as they could, screaming, so euphoric in their cries that I just had to let out a scream.