and day falls softly

Last night I watched Beach fly overhead through the darkness. The moon high, the lights flickering, the wave of noises rising from the crowds. I leaned heavily against the cold black railing looking up at her as she went by; I couldn't stop coughing. 

She will always remember this. This moment of reaching. So close to being set free. 

An amusement park at night is a strange place. How different the hills and turns become with darkness pressing against you. 

I remembered Beach telling me that even though she can't see the sun out of her bad eye it still hurts to "look" at it. The older she gets the more she can explain about what the world looks like to her. Blurs and colors and dark corners. Low lights and ghostly shapes. It must look very much like the night did. A place where sounds out number the sights. Swimming shadows and flashing signs, gray people moving swiftly around you, a bright midway peeking out of a misty white haze.  

I forget she can't see at all in the dark and I took her into the very middle of it. Little hands holding tight through the sea of people. The lights and the sounds moving like a careful dance on the edge of large black fisher. I carried her through on my back- still coughing. And when we are all done I drove her home. I tucked her into my big warm bed, where she slept late, and long into the morning... sh, she is still sleeping.