A Strange Day on Planet Earth

It is the third night of the full moon. Last night, full moon proper, was cloudy and damp. I kept peering out the window over the kitchen door for some break in the clouds, but the moon remained carefully shrouded.

I lit dozens of candles and watched the apartment blossom into an undomesticated being: Whispers and shadows gathering in the corners, the appliances sighing sleepily. Only the soft thuds of my feet as I plod from room to room. I think I can feel the eyes of the original Italian tenants staring curiously from the ceilings, wondering at this strange woman and her strange oven clock.

Dark is a different dark every night: had I forgotten this? It is only in the surreality of clocks and electric switches we think one night is like the last. I lift my phone in candlelight to put it to sleep, and am sickened by the deathly pallor it casts on everything. How often do I stare into that artificial sun?

But it is more interesting to write about the moon, even when out of sight. The clouds sat pregnant and faintly aglow, those clouds that plotted to gather on a full moon, and then jealously keep her out of sight.

I burned dried sage and watched myself too become a different being, the animal that lives within the shell, waiting for a moment to leap forward. My face looks mischievous and tells me things I did not know.

I fall asleep reading by candlelight and wake with page creases on my right arm. The morning is still overcast but strangely bright. My dreams float like reflections in an undiluted pool, and for a moment I want to slip back into the other world and never awake. Must turn to the computer, send emails, and further propel the overt storyline of my life.

I draw water for tea and find a spider in the kitchen sink. Perfectly formed, eight arched legs. It would be good luck, but she seems to have drowned to death, rendering it an uncertain omen. I put on a heavy coat and carefully lay her to rest in the garden.