Night Thoughts
The world is asleep but sleep evades me. The skies are dark. On this lonely quiet night, my radio keeps me company as it softly plays the soothing music that I love so much. The breeze makes the curtains gently sway at the open windows. I remember looking out of another window, in another lifetime and another world. The stars on that night sky dazzle me as they twinkle and they shine. In my imagination I was convinced they were softly humming to me. It is all such sheer magic.
I must have been four or five years old. I was dressed and ready for bed. I was in my parents’ bedroom. Their room was spacious and had two semicircular windowed alcoves. One alcove had become my dollies’ room. They lived there. At that instant they were having a tea party. I remember their dishes being of china, not like the plastic ones produced in later years. As I served them their imaginary supper, I glanced up to the winter night skies. They were of a deep dark velvet hue. The stars were like diamonds scattered across their wide expanse. How they twinkled and shone! The moon smiled at them indulgently. I turned my attention back to my dolls. I bent my head down to feed them and my long brown tresses brushed against my face softly. In the background I heard Papa’s shortwave radio transmitting BBC news all the way from London to Tehran.
As I ponder on that moment in time, the skies lighten. Outside my open window, the grieving turtledove mournfully yearns for his newly departed mate, “Coo, coo, my love, where have you gone to? Why have you abandoned me?” His lament echoes my lament of six years ago. My heart bleeds for the poor bird. It is so painful to lose your soulmate.
I hear a lone car drive by quietly, as if afraid to waken the sleeping neighbourhood. I sigh. I stop dreaming of bygone days. The skies are still dark but it is almost time to start this new day. I lean back into my chair and I close my eyes. I am exhausted and want to continue in my reveries, but my eyelids grow heavy with the weariness that pervaded my being. The music plays gently. In spite of myself, I finally drift into a deep slumber.