uglur

Wet November forest -- warmer than many a northern summertime meadow. Pine, fir. Spongy ground under blankets of needles. Genuinely pitchy dark under the branches, but overhead a sky of charcoal. A moon, once or twice, when there were no clouds.

But moon or not, every night there were owl voices in the trees across the clearing. I heard them when, waking well after midnight to a primal need, I ventured out and padded a little ways off. I never saw them, and they never paused in their conversation as I went by or went back. Every night in the forest I was a small child again, waking to a full bladder and creeping down the stairs long after bedtime, slipping past the lit doorway through which after-dinner grown-up conversation poured.