The glooming deepens slowly during these waning summer nights. They day was hot and humid, bringing haze and rain, and in twilight the haze persists.
Across the street, the populars whisper and their leaves dance in a high breeze that I can't feel at ground level. The patterns of the twisting leaves is mesmerizing and I watch it a long while, wondering if my camera could capture the fragile sillouette of tree against indigo sky.
Blue TVs flicker like fireflies in my neighbor's homes. Out here, the fireflies are brighter, casting their brief yellow messages as they fly, tail heavy, seeking females. There are fewer of them now than a month ago. Summer is brief.
I sit on the sturdy frame of a raised bed, a dark lamppost rising behind me. I don't like the human need to destroy the darkness of night with false suns, and our lamp is instead shelter to an amazingly large hornet colony. I leave them be.
The mosquitoes begin to find me. The dog barks on his tie out behind me. The fat man on his bike rides into the driveway across the street. (He's rude and swears at the teenagers. I don't like him. He really isn't the fat man anymore, when we first started seeing him he was huge. He's half that now. Still not slim. But much healthier.) I hush the dog, not quite ready to retreat yet.
A single bat flits past overhead, and the evening is at an end; it is officially night. I want to watch for more, but the mosquitoes gather in numbers, and the dog is looking toward the house expectantly.
The day is done.
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