The Stillness We Share
You move like night—deadly quiet, yet soft and delicate, stitched into the fabric of the shadows. I didn’t expect to meet you out here, not in the deepest and darkest hour of the evening, not on this cracked sidewalk, where the streetlights hum and flicker and the black ice glides under my sneakers. But here you are, mid-step, your doll-like eyes gleaming black and watery under the moonlight, caught somewhere between running and standing still. If you were a fellow Homo sapiens comrade of the night, another soul with opposable thumbs wandering between here and there, caught after hours in the time of night when nothing good can come of anything, then maybe this would be awkward. Maybe I would have crossed the street. Or maybe stared at my shoelaces, or pretended to be in a great hurry, or smiled a tight-lipped smile with a slight nod in your direction.
Instead, I almost apologize for being here, and I worry that I am disturbing whatever moonlit mission you were on. Instead, I just stand here, breath fogging in the cold, waiting for your eyes to blink, for your ear to twitch, for your tail to flicker, or for your feet, dressed in the most elegant of gleaming black, to shift. But you stand frozen. Unmoving. And so do I.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I say. But maybe introductions are pointless, because perhaps you already know me. Maybe you have seen people like me many times before. Have been hunted by someone like me. Have watched people like me stalk home after doing God knows what, tiptoeing through the streets like a bandit, hoping that the moon won’t tell anyone our secrets.
I am certain that I know you. Oh, yes, I have seen you before. I have seen your brothers and sisters with bloated bellies and bulging eyes and lolling tongues, smeared on the side of the road in rainbows of red and black and brown. I have seen your fathers above fireplaces, with still-soft fur and glass eyes that are forever open. I have seen photos of you, being held up by your antlers as you lay slumped on the forest floor. I have seen you strung up by your spindly legs like piñatas, your warm belly sliced open in a straight line made by a sharp knife, your steaming innards pooled around them. My mother spoke to me of you, whispering to me in the late hours of the night, telling me of your “Home on the Range,” where you play with the antelope and the skies are not cloudy all day.
I would like to ask you, if it’s alright, do you ever get tired of being hunted—by cars, by predators, by me, by this world that carves paths where trees used to stand? I try not to wrap my hair around my finger or to shift my feet as I ask you how you just keep moving, weaving through it all with the kind of grace people like me will never understand?
I wonder if you feel the weight of the things this place carries at night, at least how it does for creatures like me. If there’s a place where memory sticks to the air, it’s here, isn’t it? Or maybe that’s too personal, this is our first time formally talking. Am I stepping out of line?
Oh, but I wonder if you remember where the forest used to be, where seldom is heard a discouraging word, before concrete sliced it all apart. Is it alright if I ask you if you remember where the trees once stood behind my house, before the apartment buildings rose from the earth one day?
I have said too much. The streetlight flickers again. You blink. Your velvet ear twitches, and your tail that has been dipped in snow flickers. Your oh-so-shiny shoes shift. I blink. You’re gone. Just like that, no goodbye. Just a whisper of movement. I forgot to tell you my name, and you forgot to tell me yours. When will I see you again? Will you be here tomorrow, or maybe the next day? How will I find you again? Shall I look for you in the cracks of the sidewalk, in between the latest hours of the night?
The night breathes around me. A siren wails. A church bell rings. A bedroom light snaps off. I walk home.
Mia Paone is a senior at SUNY Geneseo, studying sociomedical sciences with a biology minor. She is from Schenectady, New York, and lives there with her family when she is home from college. In her free time, she enjoys writing, going to the gym, doing yoga, reading, and spending time outdoors. Her favorite author is Stephen King. Mia is pursuing a career in medicine, but plans on continuing to write as a hobby.