midnight

The wind is blowing, howling around the corner of something in the back yard. Like a dog, a mournful hounddog cry, a let-me-in or let-me-out sort of cry. My chest is still rattling, weeks have gone by -- it's probably bronchitis, but I won't go in unless things start to get worse again. I've had enough antibiotics this year, believe me.

There's been a strange fluctuation in the communication cycles -- people I ordinarily hear from regularly are all swamped, preoccupied, mum. Whereas, people I either don't know well or haven't heard from in a dog's age are popping up here and there, introducing themselves, resuming old acquaintance, proposing coffee. It's disconcerting.

"Clay lays still, but blood's a rover,
So I am called Killdevil all the parish
over..."

Or something like that. Just came into my head a moment ago. From Peter Beagle's "The Last Unicorn," a book I should dig up and read again since these snippets have regularly cropped up over the past month or so.

I'm tired, tired.