here comes the darkness

It's 12:30 a.m. and a week ago at this time it was still post-sunset and light outside and there were some girls eating pizza below my balcony at the rotary, big white cardboard Dominos boxes spread out on some rocks. But tonight it's pretty dim at the same time, and after months of nothing but light here it's a little shocking and a relief all at the same time. It won't be until next month that we get our first taste of real inky black darkness, the kind the rest of you experience every night. But this is a marker anyway of what's coming, the real deal. In a few more months, the real-deal darkness will be almost all we know here in the Land. And having to put some lights on in my place in the middle of the night is a little reminder of that.