The dog runs ahead of me as the moonlight sprays down through the canopy of trees, theatrical lighting for this long past midnight walk in the woods that stretch from my back door and twist between the housing estates, the schools, and the football ground.

Sleep never comes easy. No, I misspeak. Sleep never comes easy in the dark. I can sleep anywhere if the sun is resting on me. Daylight is safety. Daylight washes out the ghosts.

Nights are for fighting. Nights are for war. Nights are for being ready to run. Even though that is all so very long ago. The night theatre is beyond my control. The actors push in from stage left and stage right. They flare in the footlights. They rip across the proscenium of my dreams and force me to climb for the exit from awakeness.

The dog runs ahead of me as the moonlight sprays down through the canopy of trees. She had not wanted to get up but once outside the deeper smells of this moonlit forest pull her along. And I follow behind, trading floodlight for shadow and back as I go. "When I move through the darkness I have more power." I say this over and over until we have reached the playfields. Now the moon is there in full. Now the pressure releases. Just enough. The dog circles, once, twice, three times. We lie down together in the damp grass, this old dog and I, and our breathing slows. 

Ira Socol