Northern_Lights_2014

Nocturne for Dusk By Becca Simon The darkness sounded closer than before; it tickled her fingertips and teased her nostrils and lingered on the air like pestilent smoke. Cold concrete greeted her bare, shivering hands as she settled herself on the sidewalk against the harsh wired fence surrounding Autumncreek High School on the corner of 1626 Willow Street. She breathed a puff of hot air onto her trembling hands and clutched a long, rigid cane close to her chest, regretting with every frigid nerve in her body that she had not brought a warmer coat or a pair of mit- tens. There was hardly a sound, save for the distant shuffling on the pavement that she guessed was the old man across the street going for his evening walk, and the hushing whisper of the breeze that stung the silent atmosphere. It was the waiting she hated most. The waiting now; alone, usually spent bundled against the fence, waiting for the thundering roar of the after school stampede to soften while she waited for her only friend, Jane, to dissever herself from what she said were afterschool obligations, her voice always filled with vacant apology. The waiting in class, at the back of a classroom—the rest of the class loafing about as a harsh, raspy voice screeched textbook definitions into her ear as if through a megaphone. The wait every day as she trudged through the halls, hoping that the bustling conversations might eventually be directed towards her. The wait that never seemed it would end. But all things come to an end. The whirring clicks of what could only be a bicycle grew louder and louder until they were right next to her and came to an abrupt stop. She froze and gazed up at the bicycle’s rider, but her eyes saw nothing. She—Luce, an eighteen-year- old senior at Autumncreek High, had been blind since birth. “What did you call me out here for?” A young male’s voice spoke, an edge of discomfort in his other- wise soothing voice. She heard his bicycle fall to the ground with a crash and in an instant he was at her side, his hands clasping her quaking ones. They didn’t feel as warm as usual. “Tell me what the sky sounds like today, Harper.” Her voice was hitched. “Can’t we just—” “Tell me what it sounds like,” she whispered, “please.” Silence filled her eardrums, followed by a sigh. “It sounds like a violin, pitched low and whispering through the wind. It hits some high, sharp notes, kinda like it’s whining in pain—I mean with this cold, and all—but it isn’t all sad. It hits some warm, rich, red notes before it fades away.” “That sounds beautiful. It’s dusk, isn’t it? I wish you would play that for me.” He laughed a little. “I don’t play the violin, and I didn’t bring my guitar—you called me here on such short notice.” 10