Seeing Stars

Accursed Daylight Savings: It is now dark when I arise at 5 to run, dark when I leave the house, dark during my run, and dark when I return. In a few weeks when we lose Daylight Savings Time, I'll get an hour of daylight at dawn. Of course, it'll be pitch dark when I leave work, so six of one...

This morning we finally had clear skies, so I was hopeful that some light would leak across the horizon from the rising sun. No such luck: it was stars, stars, stars, and my breath fogging in the night of our first frost.

It was too dark to see: deer, monsters, other runners, road kills, goats, man-sized vultures, and other nightmarish creatures that I am certain inhabit our darkened neighborhood. Often a mailbox or a trashcan would pretend to be something else as I approached it nervously.

But mostly it was just stars and trees and the dim paleness of the road. Until, at about 3 miles, I looked ahead to where the mountains were just showing their crumpled outline in the darkness, and there was a streak of light in the sky, blink-fast and nearly vertical.

Ha! quoth I, a falling star!

And then, a few miles later, another one. This time I snapped my head up faster and saw a lingering trail of green hanging among the stars for an instant after the tiny green light fell, like a long dab of fingerpaint or cold smoke.

Nice to know there are some benefits to forcing myself out of bed and into the cold, cold darkness.