Last Night's Writing Theme, " Night sounds"

Last night Scott and I were sitting out back by the fire and had a bit of time before the Beatles retrospective was coming on the TV.  We decided to write something.  Scott's turn to pick the topic.  Night sounds.  He started off thinking about the sound of bugs on a hot Arkansas summer night but that Beatle thing was now in his head so he surprised me with the night the Beatles came on the Ed Sullivan Show.  Here is what I wrote:

Night sounds

I feel a slight chill as we leave the warmth of the counselor’s lodge and step out into the night.  Behind us now the sounds of conversation and laughter fade and the light from the windows ceases to light our way. 

I have spent the day in my swimsuit with my brother and sister sunbathing on the dock and playing in the water in front of the lodge which sits on the banks of a quiet, secluded lake in the Adirondack Mountains.  My mother and other counselor’s wives in bathing suits and sunglasses sit in lounge chairs  on the dock and keep an eye on us as we play.

A day in the sun and an evening by the fire inside the lodge has left me tired and longing for bed.  A loon calls from the lake and is answered by thousands of unseen insects in the deep forest that surrounds our pine needle path which leads to our borrowed two room cabin in the woods.  The path is thick and soft with hundreds of years of decaying wood, pine needles and leaves.  Even with my meager  sixty pounds  I can feel the path give and push back with each step.  The sound is quiet and comforting…. Until, to quicken our pace, our dad mentions the bears that might come out and bite our bottoms.  He punctuates with a pinch on the closest bottom which makes us all laugh.  We still quicken our pace as,  ‘you just never know…’  We are familiar with bears as one of our favorite weekend pastimes is to visit the town dump at night with others of like mind, where we watch them come out of the woods to feed. 

“ What would you do if you ran across a bear?” we ask our mom. “Well, just as he opens his mouth to bite me, I would stick my hand all the way into his mouth and down to his tail and pull him inside out.”  That answer was quite satisfying to all of us and we felt protected.  In our little world all stories have a happy ending and little children don’t ever get eaten by bears.

We come to an opening and we see the water pump up ahead where we always stop to pull down a paper cup and fill it with hand pumped, ice cold water.  We turn off the flashlight as the stars and full moon will now light our way.   The air surrounding us is crisp and clean. 

From across the lake we hear the sounds of a bugle playing taps and calling all to rest.

“ Day is done.

Gone the sun.

From the lake…

From the hill….

From the sky.

All is well…

Safely Rest.

God is nigh.”

In my bed in the same room with my brother and sister with mom and dad in the other room, I am safe.  I am loved.  All is well.