There is nothing more exhilarating than walking alone at night. The dark is one massive veil that covers a collective eye. Streetlights poke holes in the veil that sprawl my shadow across the road. Everything is cool and quiet. Not silent, but quiet. I can hear frogs chirping and foliage rustling as the wind combs through them like fingers through slightly tangled hair. The air is calmer, only disrupted when I hear the coughing and sputtering of a motor as a car passes by. I slither further into the dark to avoid the light their headlamps cast, pretending to be on a covert operations mission as I walk home from a friend’s house. The lack of light is my disguise. I feel invisible, like I could blend in with the street and the sky and become one with the obscurity and uncertainty that the night holds. While I slowly walk through the grass on the side of the road, I feel electric, I’m anticipant, and I’m waiting for a loud noise to plow through the stillness so I can dash through the ink-black landscape and let adrenaline fuel my addiction to the night. I dare something to move and scare the crap out of me, to light the wick of the firecracker that resides in the pounding of my chest.
My shadow is the only thing beside me, and she likes to dip in and out of sight, leaving me with a feeling of complete and utter detachment from reality. I feel alive; this feeling can’t possibly be real, the danger is not real, and maybe I am not real. My boots crunch on the loose gravel and tossed cigarette butts. Shattered glass and a busted chewing tobacco tin guard the power line pole and I hop into the road to avoid the minefield of smashed Smirnoff bottles and scattered snuff. I see the shortcut through the woods and decide to take it. My feet leave the pavement and crush leaves instead of pebbles as I duck under branches. Something wills me to stop and look up. Starlight filters through the canopy of trees above me, constant reminders that I am not covered in complete darkness. Twigs catch on my hair as I begin to move again, and critters scurry away from me, kicking up the underbrush as they flee. I can see the hazy, outstretched fingers of the porch light illuminating the driveway that I have no intention of using. The adrenaline is leeching away, being pulled out of my veins with a syringe of light and serenity. But I still have a covert ops mission to complete. I crouch low and hide behind my veil of darkness, leaping through the shadows, and once I have a clear path to the door, I burst through the night, sprinting like something is in pursuit. I abandon all security that I had in the darkness, and trust my legs to carry me across the massive expanse of yard. I defy my gut feelings to remain in the dark, my common sense craving the warmth of my home’s light. My heart is pulsing with a false sense of terror, and I throw my head back and cackle at the invisible force chasing me in another act of defiance in the face of my instincts.
I’m out of breath as I step into the light. The dark says nothing, but silently whispers through the blood that is rapidly pulsing through me to come back another night.
Mission accomplished.