CHAPTER II

Smoke In the Night

It was March several years ago. I was back home, but this time it was different. I was alone.

Alone except for the large flocks of red winged black birds that mocked me day after day, and the many killdeers calling and feeding into the dark with their plaintive cries dragging me back into the past. One day there was a pack of wild dogs, probably coyotes, working the field behind the house looking for rabbits and cats and whatever else they could find to flesh out their thinness in late winter. I feared for the killdeers, and hoped they weren't nesting yet; ground nesters wouldn't have a chance against a pack of coyotes.

But, I was home; and for a few days the place would be mine. Paternal grandparents were long gone, mother, too. Father spending last days in a medical facility whence he would never return, and there was I. I don't want to recall why I was there, what I needed to do. I just want to remember the spirit. I roamed and worked there for several days. Most of the time it was quiet. Quiet, for me, is healing, a balm, a gift, and a treasured one at that. Creative ideas gushed, but there was no time for that; I had to attend to the practical threads of life.

During that time a swarm of ladybugs invaded my bedroom same as hundreds of other swarms invaded hundreds of houses in the Eastern United States; I don't know if they did so elsewhere, but it was a topic of conversations and newspaper articles everywhere I went for a few years. I later learned they are an Asian species new to us, not our gentle, docile ladybug beloved by generations and generations of children. Of course they preferred my room; so did I, and for the same reason. An eastern to southeastern exposure is always warmer, more comfortable, lighter, brighter, and pleasant.

As I started to bed late one night, there the little rascals were, all over my bed. I guess they'd hatched out inside that south-facing wall and found their way through the window cases on either side the head of my bed. Fortunately, I prefer a quiet house and a cool house, and as I was there alone, that was what I had. The head of my bed was against that outside wall, a wall with no insulation, so I slept in a knitted cap due to the cold wall at my head.

Warmly dressed for sleep, and wearing the cap, I stood looking at the cute little things all over the head of my bed. I had no intention of hurting them. I just said, "Move over, guys, I'm coming in." And, so I did.

I was never really alone. Late one night as I sat in the sunroom watching television (British comedies, of course), I heard owls in the large willow-oak tree a few feet from the corner of the room. Judging by the voices there had to be at least three or four out there in the old tree. This was a family no doubt for Great Horned owls nest in January and February; now it was March. I turned off the TV and turned off the furnace then sat in the quiet dark to listen and there was much to hear, for a long time there was much conversation. Midnight came and went and still my company gossiped in the tree.

Wondering if I might be able to see them, I slowly and quietly moved the edge of the drapery and peeked. Something else caught my eye; more and more dark forms materializing in the dark, barely visible, dark on dark, silently approaching across the field in front of the house and coming nearer - more and more taking shape in various sizes immerging from the dark. I saw a sight I'd never seen there before during all those years while growing up. Quietly they crossed the front yard right in front of me and passed between the tree and me, even closer than the owls. If the window had been open I could have almost touched them.

I began breathing again as they moved silently past the end of the house into the fields beyond and behind. Silently, into the dark, several deer moved as if floating through the front yard near to the house and disappeared like smoke in the night.