Welcome to dreamland. It’s all about that aged sign in the bottom corner, Banner.
On an unrelated note (really, truly unrelated), my barber warned me about ever taking a boat out past the edge of Long Island to the area surrounding Plum Island. You know, in case I had plans to investigate nightmares.
The wind chill today pushed the temperature into single digits, making the earth outside hard as concrete and the streets more desolate than ever.
Whippets, by rights of centuries of breeding and manipulation, live to chase down small animals. Rabbits are the ideal quarry, but squirrels and anything of a similar size are nearly as mind breaking. My dog’s instincts fly into overdrive and the bits of his brain reserved for listening to me disintegrate whenever the opportunity to chase arises. Curiously, as Icarus is wary of anything larger than a cat, a particular animal much larger than most dogs causes a similar abandonment of reason. Deer, sighted even at a great distance, threaten to make the pup spiral into madness.
Three deer gathered this morning around a large puddle covered by a thick layer of ice. Two were chewing the dying grass, the third was sipping the dregs of unfrozen water. Only once we got within 20 feet did they do anything other than perk their ears and stare. At that point, white tails raised, the deer leapt into the woods and vanished. Deer crossing roads and grazing outside homes offers that dreamy and dangerous juxtaposition of the untamed and the too-tamed.
Blair-witch woods fade into black to one side of the sidewalk. After 10 feet, the light from the row of fluorescent street lamps barely hits the bases of slender trunks. Ten feet farther, the woods become dense and featureless.
In that expanse, the distant roar of a motorcycle sounded more animal than machine.
Opposite the woods, uniform, numbered houses sit on plots of close cut grass. Occasional lamps can be seen behind windows. But most of the buildings, split into multiple apartments, sit in darkness. The one-story structures look more like barracks than any apartment complex would ever allow. They don’t attempt much beyond function.
The barracks, surrounding woods, and abrupt clearings make the area look like a low-key military compound. Very little of the hum of the day persists into the night.
All that said, this place is electric with charm. There’s no place I’d rather be, and the stars are particularly bright tonight.
P.S. I live here for a while:
Dream of the Dragon 