Unsignificant Significancies

Unnoticed, in the insignificance of an unimportant town, white curls of smoke rose above an open apartment window. The smoke merged into the thick late night air as a lone man exhaled with a heavy sigh. He looked deep into the empty king sized tally carton as if he could conjure one last cigarette. He flicked the lid with a tar stained finger and tossed the packet to the road, just missing two waltzing moths. He stood up, grabbed his Salvation Army trench coat, tied it firmly around his waist and began to fumble for his keys. The street lamp above him flickered, once, twice and died.

The soft glow in Hermes room flickered once, twice and disappeared. He could not sleep. A song was running over and over in his mind, he hummed the tune. The silent syllables of the lyrics bounced around the walls in his head, he enjoyed their solitary company. Tied of idly lying in his single bed, whose sheets refused smooth, Hermes got up. He wrapped the sheet firmly around his waist and groggily shuffled to the window. Although it was open, no comforting breeze would sooth the heavy heat of the room. The night was thick and still. Below, he could just make out an empty bench beneath an old street lamp whose light had gone out. Something caught his eye, illuminated by the hazy glow of lamps further down the lane. An empty cigarette packet lying on the pathment was the only remains of human contact. He looked over the emptiness of the street and began to idly pick at the peeling pieces of paint that covered the window sill. A part of him wanted to wonder across the cobblestones below but he knew he would not leave the apartment. He was a watcher, always inside, looking out.

A single car drove slowly, drunkenly, down the road, its periodical light painted obscure shadows across the room. They crept across the white sheet that clutched to Hermes naked clamminess. Fragmented and exaggerated shadows danced in and out of the sheets natraul as it crossed. Their angular dominance comforted him and he felt there absence when they passed. Shadows he thought are like memories. He turned his back to the window and examined the semi darkness of the room. He could just make out his peeling wall paper he had never bothered to mend. The room seemed empty, despite the few constructions of furniture and carelessly scattered belongings. He felt a tingling sensation across his shoulder blades, he shrugged it off. Turning back to face the window, two almost identical moths attempted to camouflage themselves against the peeling paint. They reminded him of a book that lay beneath his bed, gathering dust. He had read it once, long ago. He spoke aloud in his memory:

“We are divided into night creatures and day creatures, some of us fly towards the light and some towards the dark.”

‘Which am I?’ he thought and his eyes flickered open to day light.