Early Morning Animals
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008
Shrouded in fog, the houses lit by porch lights draw together at dawn, turning the streets into alleys for the neighborhood pets to move through in misty apparitions.
This was the scenery the previous morning, too – visibility suddenly shrunken, houses down the long street hidden behind the clouds and the block suddenly ended. The windows in parked cars steamed as though by breath but in actuality a symptom of the cool glass against even cooler temperatures. Eventually, the clouded windows beaded as the morning deepened and then evaporated in direct sunlight.
Tomcats left out for the night sleek up the sidewalks onto porch stoops and wait for doors to open. The mist around them distorts their size so that they move with the same cunning and bravery as lions.
Meanwhile, the sad housecats stare forlornly out into the development contemplating all that they missed in the dark rows between houses and the gray farm fields nearby where the mice play safe from birds of prey that can swoop down and carry them back to nests. The mice realize they are free from the pesky house cats that look out from behind glass like angry animals at the zoo.
Rotting jack-o-lanterns sit on stairs and porches from two nights ago. Candles burned inside them to a heated-gut smell that went out over the lawns and in through screendoors that were left open on an unseasonably warm night for trick-or-treating. But as the night progressed, those doors were drawn closed, as the same pets were left to roam the cold night with the rot coming down around them.
Now the sun moves closer to its place and the fog begins to lift. The temperatures are cool spring-like cool and will stay so until, rather immediately, around 10, it will be warmer. Jackets will be shed and long sleeves pushed up to the elbow.
Let out through backdoors, the neighborhood dogs round the morning fences to find a place in the yard to soil and then another patch to settle in as the morning becomes day. Water bowls that were set out for these dogs yesterday and were entirely lapped up are not filled with shallow dew.
In trees above the dogs and the mice, robins sing as they did in spring, this late autumn weather similar feeling to it was then. As the planet leans away from the sun and the Earth crosses back through the same angle as it does temporarily in early spring, the birds are confused during the two weeks of lovely weather. The only difference in seasons is that soon it will turn deathly cold, their nests are not new, they too will soon be abandonded while everything around them dies and grows cold.
Coffee brews in the pots around the enshrouded neifhborhood. Children uo nefore the sun rose play quietly in beds with their most recent toys making up imaginary caverns and palaces in their bedsheets. The fathers sit and read the newspapers or help the mothers with breakfast. Soon the rush to chirch will begin, all the children must be clothed quickly and through God’s grace somehow avoid getting pancake syrup or spilled juice on sleeves or jackets.
Off by the industrial area, the tracks whistle with passing trains. The light turns golden as it raises above the houses and now the early morning fog is gone tntirely. Soon, the families will be outside in the yards and the house animals inside or in their appropriate places, one type of animal exchanged for another and the day underway.
