To Observe on a Misty Orange Night
Joshua Lancman '24
The mist hung softly in the air after the rains earlier that day. At night, with the orange incandescent glow of streetlights coloring and fading into and out of the surrounding vapor, the whole suburban atmosphere felt tinged with something strange, something foreign. It reminded me of old 19th century gaslight, like you see in those Victorian illustrations of a century-past London, where people walk with their heads pulled into their jackets with the brim of the collar flipped up, where the light has a physicality and feels projected beyond the lamp, and it always seems to be foggy. The neighborhood carried a different character on that night with that light hitting that air, the little perfect square of streets with identical looking houses, in the center of which, a small school, an elementary school, open fields on either side. Although not such a perfect square; the entire neighborhood, called Redwood, perhaps for what the normally-light brown trees seemed to be colored when they were hit by the orange streetlights on a night like this, rises in a gradual ascent on a hill. The school is built into the hill, the two roads on either side rise parallel to one another, with the other two roads above and below the school on different elevations, parallel, still a square.
My house lies on the downhill side, so when I walk through the neighborhood I go across, up, then across, then down and across again going around the school, its fields and its hill. I was out for a stroll that night, noting that with the hanging mist, and the beautiful orange color of the streetlights, it would be the ideally dense atmosphere to clear my mind. I don’t know the names of many of my neighbors; I’ve always envied people who live in those close-knit communities, with their block parties and group associations. I know them by face, perhaps I wave hello to them as I walk by, but they might as well not even be there in the first place, they might as well not even exist.
I was walking alone that night, alone as in by myself, and alone as in there was no one around me, no one else wandering the tree-lined sidewalks, circumnavigating the Redwood School and its neighborhood, despite the beautiful ambiance of the air. I walked past the similar, yet different-looking enough houses, with the two car garages, pointed roofs, short lawns and comfortable backyards, firm rectangular first stories with second pointed ones and even smaller attics for the third; they all seemed empty to me, despite the noises coming from inside of them and the harsh electricity protruding out. In one a party seemed to be happening. A person turning a certain age- a child, maybe? Turning ten, twelve, thirteen, sixteen, eighteen? An adult, marking down another unspecial year? I can’t remember; all the endless days and walks around the neighborhood blended together.
I knew nothing about the people in each house. Each one was a life unto itself, an entire world I simply was not a part of, being trapped on my own planet. A car drove by- something new and shiny and chrome, with a perfect plastic-molded aerodynamic outside. It did so quietly, stealthily, not wanting to make a mess or disturb the peace of boredom, its headlights dimmed. I imagined I was on the road, speeding along in my own car, not minding or wondering or thinking about how the hundreds, thousands of other vehicles I passed in my time wandering the roads, walking or driving, vehicles or houses, that they were individuals, people as much as I was, as separate from them as they were from me. We lived as neighbors, yes. We walked the same streets. We drove along the same square-shaped road surrounding that same elementary school, built into the hill on the opposite side from my house. The mist that was in the air was the same mist for all of us, and the orange light that illuminated it was too. We did nothing for each other. We knew we existed; we acted as though we didn’t, as though each personand their house were the only one on the block.
I turned the corner, onto the uphill road. It winded slightly, not a perfect part of the square, sothat it can surmount the rise in elevation. I know the cracks in the sidewalk at this point, having walked it so many times. That concrete block is broken into five separate pieces- those three together, stacked up, make a nice-looking trapezoid. That block seems to be split almost perfectly in half, a lightning-bolt looking line dividing it down the middle. This other one curves outward slightly, almost into the street, only bounded by the little granite blocks that elevate the sidewalk and which, in all my life, I’ve only ever found in this part of New Jersey. It moved to make room for tree roots, or perhaps the roots pushed it out, but I haven’t been around long enough to know. I doubt anyone who lives around here has.
As I rounded the bend in the uphill road where it joins the elevated, flat one, right at the school’s parking lot, with one of the orange streetlights suspending the physical mist in time in the corner of the lot, I saw something, a person, the first I witnessed on this walk at night. I can’t tell what, no, who, it is at first. Finally, having walked up enough to get a good glance, I see her piling up trash bags into the dumpster beside the elementary school. She, the janitor, looked old, but not so old, young and old enough that it depressed me to find her there, piling garbage bags in an elementary school in a suburban neighborhood, but perhaps that is just my false judgment. She continued piling, and I continued walking up the street, turning my neck, not craning, not gawking, simply turning my head to observe the seeming strangeness of this woman, a janitor, out on this beautiful night in this neighborhood, especially at this late time, piling up overflowing garbage in a dumpster.
I was saddened, at first; judgmental, yes; classist, in a way. I found it disconcerting that she was here, at that mixture of her youth and age, and she appeared wholly in the frame of my mind as a subject to observe, to comment on, to perceive and, by perceiving her, give her being. She had a great level of duty and commitment to these kids, that’s why she was out here so late, cleaning, organizing, making this school function. She knew her job was all manual, perhaps a bit basic, but necessary, and she did it out of responsibility, because she saw the good effects, the necessary environment she created: a clean place for these suburban children to learn, to play, to enjoy and grow through their first few years. It was difficult work for her; it was, maybe, a dead end job, but it was needed. Someone had to do it, and she did it well, and was here, outside, working, on a night like this.
It was neither warm nor cold out, since the misty air mixed with the heat of the night. I could not remember where my skin ended and the air began. Suddenly she turned around, walking back into the school for some reason unapparent to me, and, turning, she seemed to see me, and her eyes pierced through the misty orange air like those harsh fluorescents you find in schools and office buildings and hospitals- clear, yes, and clean, but almost too revealing. And suddenly I was the subject being observed. I felt small, like a speck of dust she might clean; I appeared small, even to myself. I saw myself walking on an empty night for no apparent reason- maybe I was lonely, on my way to some illicit meeting. I saw myself watching, gawking now, like a rubbernecker at a place where there’s no accident. I saw myself commentating in thoughts that disappeared after popping into my empty head, meaningless ideas, disconnected from reality. She walked back into the school, utterly out of my reach, even my mind’s reach. She was something else entirely. I continued walking.
Oma
Ady/Suni Goldman-Brown '25
Oma wasn’t lost.
To anyone else, he probably looked like he had no idea where he was, but this
wasn’t true. He knew exactly where he was. The flicker of the streetlamp above
him was how he knew. Over the course of his whole life, he memorized its
flickering pattern: 10 flickers, stops for two seconds, three flickers, stops for five
seconds, seven flickers, stops for 23 seconds, rinse and repeat. But still,
according to Oma, something felt....off...
He gazed up at the stars. They always helped to ground him and ease his
nerves. Oma enjoyed watching them twinkle and glow against the stark, inky
blues and purples of the night sky.
Tonight, though, Oma wasn’t relaxed when he looked up at the stars.
He was afraid.
There were no stars in the sky. A faint red glow was seeping into the inky
nothingness of the horizon. Something was very, very wrong.
But the thing that stood out to Oma the most wasn’t the sky or the lack of stars.
It was the moon. It was...crying?
...No...the moon was bleeding. A dark ichor was seeping out of it and dripping
onto the pavement in front of Oma. His head started pounding. The hum of the
streetlamp was getting louder. It hurt. Help me. It hurts. Stop staring at me.
Oma’s legs felt like jelly. He stumbled and shook until at last, the world went
dark as he passed out cold.