Fog and Candlelight

The fog is ethereal tonight, sliding silently across roads, churches, cemeteries, and homes of stone lit up in the haze as if something out of history and books, stories told only by campfire.

In the evenings, the candles in our windows burn their pretending electric flames behind me, and I stare into the dining room at the still forms of chairs, seated at a table where nobody is eating. Are they lonely when the rushed meals are over? The inanimate objects who hold the legs and laps of so many people, of a family only grateful for their presence when thy are not there --do they pander and ponder to memories that seem to rush by them without any cares, moving forward without stopping to consider the passing of time?

It passes so quickly, but always in a hurry, rushing, hoping, waiting, complaining and barking out orders to "hurry, we'll be late!" and "hurry, we must hurry!" and on we rush forward, forward, forward, not thinking of the stillness of chairs in the evening of fog and candlelight.

The clock in the library continues to move, so long as the battery in the back does not give out. Seconds, I glance, and then minutes, I notice, hours and it starts all over again; I can't seem to stop watching the hours that come and go. They are faster with each sunrise, faster with each flip of the monthly calendar. We wake in the dark and we fall asleep in the dark, while the daylight is divided into rushing, rushing, and eating, and rushing, and then eating, rushing, rushingrushingrushing. In between each rush are pauses I try to elongate first with work and second with books. Wedged in and becoming wider is the pondering, the stopping, the atrophy of muscles. I look longer, I feel deeper, I seep into the moment and command the clock to slow just... a ... bit...

But. Snapping back to precision as only a rebellious child who desires attention from an ignorant and lazy parent, the clock clicks on, never wavering, moving, moving, rushing, rushing, steady, steady, steady.

And it is dark again, candles glow again, chairs grow still again, sometimes the fog appears and I see the day has ended... again...