(Illustration by Meg van Schaik)
Last night, once again, in the theater of the stars and a waxing gibbous moon, the village seemed draped in a pastel veil; the dusty road in front of me a frozen caramel stream. The silence hung in the shadowed trees, like breathfruit slowly exhaling, quivered only by the distant barking of dogs in warning, comeraderie or loneliness.
As I have written before, in uncomfortably honest truth, loneliness plays on the mind more perniciously in the dead of night. Thoughts of family, friends and distant loved ones are amplified in the darkness, soaking through the walls.
Loneliness is a hollowing of the bones. It sucks at the marrow and crawls into the empty spaces. It has an appetite that is only satiated when it finally gnaws into the soul.
It must not be allowed to feed. Love and fellowship are its only suppressant.
Deep in the night, sitting alone at my station as my other NHW fellows are doing, we are all connected. Not only by our comms system, but also an energy that binds us as a fellowship. Sometimes there’s banter, or tracking and reporting people or vehicles from one position to the next. At other times there is a connected silence.; a time to wonder at the slow swim of the moon above or the song of the crickets as they fiddle in the hedges. Some of us have never met in person, but are getting to know each other in the camaraderie of our collective, but isolated, common purpose.
Comments