Breaking the Silence of the Night...Can't You Hear Me Screaming? - Queensryche, Breaking the Silence
Working at night can be a weird experience, especially if you're working alone. I used to have a job where I would come in very early, around 4:30 a.m. in the summer heat, but that's entirely different since I would only get a couple of hours of alone time before the rest of the crew arrived. Now, it's 10p - 6a on weekends, with only the occasional tenant to break the silence.
First off, it gets quiet alone at night...really quiet. Aside from the intermittent noise of cars and the occasional train in the distance, it's nothing but some night birds and your thoughts...thoughts that seem to exit your skull and bounce around the driveways and buildings. Thoughts that just heighten the sense of desolation and solitude. Echoes that beckon you to shut your eyes and retreat inside of your REM cycle. Too damn quiet, period.
The Corgibrat feels it, too, fighting the quiet with occasional naps and and frequent, frenetic bouts of wanting to satisfy his blood lust. Rabbits, raccoons, and feral felinoids sneak through often enough to keep his nose working and his fury ready. We walk all around the property; he checks every place that a creature could hide, his nose continually to the ground. Cats and rabbits can usually move fast enough to evade him, the raccoons have a harder time escaping his stumpy legs and snapping jaws. His instincts take him immediately to his wild ancestors, clamping his jaws at the top of the neck and shaking the body, separating nerves and vertebrae. I've conditioned him well; when he shakes our tug-of-war rope, it takes all of my strength to hold on to it. I call him off of the poor critter; he returns, happy to have satisfied his primal urges and to have pleased his master.
That's still only some noise for a short time of the night shift. Sound is key here, electronic sound. I have a portable TV that is nice sometimes, but Over-The-Air TV gets to be nothing but infomercials and sub-B movies after 2a.m. Netflix is a Godsend at these hours. The movies require more of my attention than I would like to give sometimes, but they have plenty of tv series, so I can get that same familiar background drone that doesn't demand my focus the way a movie would. The perfect background music to do a little reading as time allows, plus catch up on some shows that I've missed.
Dexter is one of those shows that I had missed. It worries me a bit that I identify with Dexter so much, but I've been assured that I'm not the only person that feels that way. I don't think I could be as impersonal about the business of being a serial killer as he, I'd want to clean off my grudge list before moving on to the general population of bad guys out there. There's really not anyone on my grudge list anymore that I feel needs to be killed...well, maybe one. There's a few that I'd like to cripple up with a baseball bat, but that would take more energy than I'd like to expend these days. Shooting the finger and chunking a rock is about all I have the strength for lately.
A couple of hours before sunrise, the birds start to wake and sing, a nice time to enjoy the shut-down of the human world and listen to nature's call. It's so peaceful that it seems to make the concrete and steel seem less artificial. Great for getting me ready to go home and crawl into bed for a few hours of sleep. The Corgibrat is winding down and ready for some snuggling, nothing left to do but the last round and locking up. The computer is in the car, the coffee thermos is rinsed out and ready for the next time, and we climb into the car for the drive home. I can't seem to manage to sleep later than about 11a.m. on these days, so now I'm up and writing this. And now it's nap time, and then to force myself back into a day schedule for the rest of the week. That's the hardest part of all of this; it makes me feel a lot older than I am, makes me feel ready to just lie down and pass away. The only thing keeping me waking up anymore is the Corgibrat; there's not any people that want or need my presence anymore.
The worst thing about feeling old is knowing that you never made a difference.
1 comment:
Eric - interesting, poetic, beautiful and sad. You do have a way with words, my friend. I feel sad to read that you don't think anyone cares whether you are around except Switch. That means that I haven't done a good enough job telling you what a difference you have made to me and what an asset you are to our business. Knowing you are there, trusting you completely, relying on your smarts and expertise in so many areas to problem-solve & fix things, look around and see what needs doing and doing it before I can even ask. all these things have put my mind at rest. I can't thank you enough for that. In addition, I must say, for the record, that you HAVE made a difference in people's lives - I can tell that from the friends who love you. I know that is true for me and I know it is true for others dear to me.
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