...and with those of neighbors who discovered that they truly enjoyed her company.
We, her children, also discovered this.
Finally.
Their divorce lasted a little while, but she did go back near the end, when he was dying. She helped him.
Chapter 7
OCEAN GHOSTS
The trees erupted with bright colors of sunset; a final hurrah before the black and white death of winter. Angry steel-grey clouds glared down at us. They pushed us to get things done. we lived at the behest of our local environment, and that is the best way to go about doing anything.
Once properly founded, a structure must be clad and then adorned. There is truly only one way to do this. You know how to do this for yourself, don't you? If you haven't yet discovered this, then no worries. You will find it out for yourself.
Trust.
I was always the last one to hush all of the oil lamps. I always stayed up late in the creaking hill-side house reading or attempting to scribble or jot or draw on fair paper.
(Good, heavy stock paper would appear years away, as well as a favorite pen. Never erase nor delete anything. It might come in handy later. As for hoarding; chuck extra weight so that you are a light traveler. You have many places to discover, many foods and drinks to savor, and you need to deal with what is hanging onto before you walk with a focused, intentional step. Try to see the world through your own eyes instead of staggering about with your cell-screen in front of your face. You might miss things. What you bring with you simply must be the ocean glass, the books and the writings and the images of what it means to be you.)
The rattling from the window pane next to my bed awoke me. I looked out and saw my wide-eyed reflection, and it jumped me. I grabbed my book that was written about a wrinkle in time and closed it. I set it next to the oil lamp and hushed the light.
(This is done by cupping your hand near the top part of the other side of the glass chimney and saying, "HA." Be mindful to never spit on a hot glass oil lamp chimney. It will explode into shards. Take care of yourself and others whom you hold dear in such a manner.)
My eyes adjusted to the night. I looked out across the bay down beyond the bluffs and the hill below my window. The ocean tossed and roiled with steam like it is before you throw pasta in a pot.
The moon above shined from within her a black cloak of winking glints of forgotten memories and important things to write down.
Those angry clouds grumbled and flashed their fangs from the edge of the world across the boiling bay like white knuckled fists.
Down the slope, I saw the mist from the bay coil up into shapes. Gusts of the approaching storm blew those shapes up the hill.
I saw this, I swear to you. It looked like an army of ghosts on horseback in full charge.
Why did I want have my bed against this window? What had I been thinking?
The fog-horses galloped up the hill with white figures atop, and they rode to my window. The moon winked out of view, covered in her soft black shroud.
I saw skeletal faces flash in my window.
It was too much.
I was not a man.
Not yet.
The windows rattled and the light was out and I helplessly listened to the stampede from beneath my knitted afghan all night long.
In the howling wind, the clanking window panes, thunder and flashes of might, no one could hear the sounds I made.
No one
---willies out.
