Pools of Dead Light

As part of my wanderings last night, I strayed into a town not too far from my usual tracks. The stillness and lifelessness was disturbing, aside from an occasional passing car the only noise for quite some time was my own footsteps hollowly reflecting off the walls. Sodium lamps provided an uncomfortable glow of dead pool lighting, passing under these I noticed my skin tones became green giving a corpse like appearance. I looked up to the night sky and there was nothing but dull blackness. With closed doors and curtains drawn tight the residents huddled within the rabble of housing, doubtless the TV was their only window on the world for the evening. Eventually I passed one other soul, a large workman wearing a scruffy high visibility jacket standing in the ferocious white glare of shop lighting. He grunted and grumbled noises into his mobile phone while in his other hand he clutched a polystyrene box stuffed with formless fatty meat, the stench of which was uncomfortable and stomach turning as I passed beneath his gaze.

It was a relief to make my journey up to the woodlands. Once among the trees I could feel the gentle breath of the night air and the rustling of the trees. Even on a dark January night the subtle energies of the wood called, the night sky told tales of distant settlements and a glimpse of the stars through the passing clouds. Here I could feel the energies of the living world and the cycles in which they move.

We are a product of our environment, the more time we spend in that environment the more we take on its characteristics and it permeates what we are and forms what we become.