Early Nightfalls

Posted on December 12, 2003 in Routine The Orange

Sunset came at 4:43 PM today. The sun rose after seven. I have a hard time living at this time of year. The light doesn’t end with a thunderfall or begin with a bang. I just notice that it is gone when the world turns a little too blue for seeing clearly.

The early nightfall confuses me. I’m used to driving around in the dark with few cars. Now it gets dark just before Rush Hour. There are too many paired lights on the road, slowing me down when I usually enjoy speeding along empty highways. I get to be part of a glow worm, surmounting hills, breaking segmentally at lights, and plowing slowly across the crosshatched cityscape, never making my own trail.

This “freedom” to have my own rolling room robs me and everyone else of the individuality that comes only out of being close enough to others to make out the pores on their cheeks, beneath their eyes. Only the moon gets to have a face.