Almost Midnight

The house is empty.  The only sound comes from the baseboard.  This is the time of darkness.  Worries that are pushed aside during the busy day . . . return.  Doubts swim up to the surface and  pull me down into the depths of the waters.  But soon I will sleep.  My mind will fill with dreams. Images from the past will mingle with incomprehensible concepts and disjointed settings.  Ideas will flourish through the tangled labyrinth and will give birth to new story-lines.  Breathing life into my characters.  How many of these ideas will have been forgotten before dawn?

Do I hear a sound?  Is it a sound from another frequency?  Perhaps an echo between worlds?  Is that a foot-step on the stairs?  Just the settling of an old house?  The house is empty.  It is almost midnight.  My old companion lies at the foot of my bed, she dreams of running through fields as her paws pump in mid-air.  I whisper her name, she relaxes into silence.  Her existence reassures me, I am not alone.

Turn off the computer, close the light, let the night take over.  For the morning will come and with it the light of a new day.