portriat of the night

I saw a shooting star tonight. I watched it fly right through the Big Dipper.

I only had to walk four blocks to get back to the bus stop, and it was a very calm, silent walk. The old, full trees, with the street lights above, dotted the sidewalks with dark pits of black shadows. I couldn't bring myself to walk through them, so I walked down the middle of the street, the only spot that was consistently lit.

I got to the bus stop, and checked the schedule. The next bus wasn't due for another 20 minutes. I thought about walking to the next stop, but decided I'd had enough walking in strange neighborhoods at night through dark shadows, so I would wait.

The house on the corner had a sprinkler going. With only the occasional car driving by, the ratcheting tick-tick-tick of the sprinkler took center stage. The water made a thin, sharp sound as it slapped the side of the brick house. I wondered why they didn't adjust it so it didn't hit the house.

Just up the block, I could make out the figure of a man walking. He looked to be around my age, and was walking very slowly. He was stopping every few steps and doing something with his hands. It wasn't until he was almost at the corner across from me that I saw what he was doing: he was eating a pint of ice cream. As he got down to the bottom of the container, he had to keep stopping as he tilted the container up in a vain attempt to get his spoon all the way down. It must have been melting by now, as the last few bites he took he had the container up to his mouth like it was a glass, using the spoon in his left hand to push the remainder of the ice cream into his mouth. He must be left-handed.

The sprinkler had stopped by then. I never saw anyone come out of the house, so it must have been on a timer. When the man was done with his ice cream, he placed the spoon in the container, and then very carefully balanced the empty container on a rock at the corner of the yard. He turned, wiped his hands on his shirt, and staggered up the hill towards who knows where. After about 20 yards he stopped under a street light, and almost fell over as he tilted his right wrist to see his watch. It's funny that as he was eating the ice cream he didn't seem to stagger at all, but when it was gone it was obvious he was rather drunk.

As he passed a driveway, I saw something move just beyond the shadow. At first I thought maybe I had imagined it, but it moved again so I knew something was there. I couldn't tell whether it was a cat, or a raccoon, but I eventually saw a cat nose out of the dark around the fence, and take off up the street.

After that, I looked up in the sky, right at the Big Dipper looming low in the summer sky. Only a second or two after I looked up, I saw a streak of light fly from the far eastern sky, directly towards the bowl of the Dipper, and flew right through it. It was so odd, as I had been standing there for about ten minutes and had not once looked towards the sky. Yet I looked up just in time to see a very large, very bright shooting star, almost as if it had been waiting all night for me to look up.