Hints and Guesses

Growing up, I rarely went to sleep right away because we were made to go to bed so early. No one else we knew went to bed at the time we did.

So it was in the dark I lay awake. I made up stories about the people who lived in the curtains. I read books (sometimes forbidden books!) by the dim glow of my alarm clock. I listened to them fight, her sharp, clear words alternating with the indistinct drone of my father’s voice. I dreamed of running away. I stared at the lights of the power plant in the distance. I listened to the bullfrogs croak by the cow pond. The dark was my time.