My Place in the Universe
I have always enjoyed the night sky, and was looking forward to seeing it on this fine, crisp, December morning, just an hour or so before dawn. My nose was starting to feel cold even before I opened the side door of the house. Even though it was a moonless night, I knew I wouldn’t be able to see the Milky Way from here as I remembered I could as a small child, but it was worth another shot, and had purposely left the floodlights turned off just in case.
The snow crunched beneath my boots as I walked down the driveway toward the back yard, the sound almost deafening in that utter silence that always seems to follow a new fallen snow. I glanced up and could see those brilliant white specks glaring down from a jet black sky that have always made me feel just a little bit better. The air was so cold and devoid of moisture, my breath was luminescent. "About three or four below," I thought, "perfect."
Once out in back, I could barely make out the milky way; it was lacking the splendor that it had shown me before. The last time I had seen it in all its glory had been many years before, during an all night drive through Wyoming, when I had to pull over just to look. What I thought had been a few minutes before I got back into the car, had actually been a couple hours.
I pondered, once again, my place in the universe. I had done well. I lived in the familial home with my loving wife and our two strong sons, both of whom I could now see through the back picture window, eating their cereal while watching cartoons before getting ready for school that day. Yes, I had done well, I was a college educated citizen of the most powerful and affluent nation on earth. I was a land owner, king of my castle, in a good neighborhood of the capitol city of a major state. I was at the very apex of the food chain on the planet, at least in my neck of the woods. I had it all.
I thought of this as I awaited the culmination of this most vital of morning chores, the dog to find just the perfect place to leave a steaming heap of shit. Yes, I did indeed, know my place in the universe.
The snow crunched beneath my boots as I walked down the driveway toward the back yard, the sound almost deafening in that utter silence that always seems to follow a new fallen snow. I glanced up and could see those brilliant white specks glaring down from a jet black sky that have always made me feel just a little bit better. The air was so cold and devoid of moisture, my breath was luminescent. "About three or four below," I thought, "perfect."
Once out in back, I could barely make out the milky way; it was lacking the splendor that it had shown me before. The last time I had seen it in all its glory had been many years before, during an all night drive through Wyoming, when I had to pull over just to look. What I thought had been a few minutes before I got back into the car, had actually been a couple hours.
I pondered, once again, my place in the universe. I had done well. I lived in the familial home with my loving wife and our two strong sons, both of whom I could now see through the back picture window, eating their cereal while watching cartoons before getting ready for school that day. Yes, I had done well, I was a college educated citizen of the most powerful and affluent nation on earth. I was a land owner, king of my castle, in a good neighborhood of the capitol city of a major state. I was at the very apex of the food chain on the planet, at least in my neck of the woods. I had it all.
I thought of this as I awaited the culmination of this most vital of morning chores, the dog to find just the perfect place to leave a steaming heap of shit. Yes, I did indeed, know my place in the universe.
posted by fatherjosh42 at 10:17 PM
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