At night, sometimes, my neighbors across the street leave a light on in their house. Maybe they mean to leave it on. Maybe they forget. I go outside at night,
sometimes, to think.
They
are an elderly couple, from somewhere in the Midwest. He was a coach. She was a home ec teacher. He fishes, and sometimes he will come back with a cooler full
of catfish. I make hush puppies, and take them across the street. We eat, and
talk. Sometimes she will make a strawberry pie.
The
light is in the entry hall, where the walls are a pale blue. I am not bothered that
they leave it on. Whether they mean to, or forget. It is the light itself that bothers
me. At night, sometimes, when I look across the street, the light has
turned the room a ghostly green.
The
green of a sanitarium. The green of a gas chamber. Color of an ice-hell. Bone-cold disdain.
Maybe
they don’t mean to. Maybe they forget. Either way, the light will still be there and I will see it from my window. Green as a lie to a
dying child, or lying under a man you don’t even hate.
Dark
as up-turned earth. She makes a damn good pie.
I go
outside at night to think. Sometimes to forget.