B-57, the computer said. That wasn’t so bad. Even though I had forgotten to get my (Southwest) boarding pass at the appointed hour, a B-57 is fine if you’re flying alone.
Satisfied, I shut the computer and walked out the back door of the cottage to catch up with Burt and Jenny and the dogs who had set out into the night a few minutes before.
I took a step off the porch onto the cinder block path that leads to the camper. But you see I didn’t see the cinder blocks under my feet. And I didn’t see the camper, because I had just been staring into a computer screen, I could see absolutely nothing.
But I know this place. Well.
So I just kept walking, avoiding the corner of the camper and the tree beside it just by muscle memory. And then I stood a while in the sandy turn-around place under the tall White Pine waiting for my eyes to adapt.
There was no adapting.
Except for a vague white glow of the moon mostly concealed behind clouds low on the eastern sky thru the woods, I could see nothing. Not the sand under my feet. Not the sky above me. Not the tall White Pine tree that was… right there, right were I expected it to be.
You see, I know this place. Well.
How far ahead could they be, anyway? I began to walk out into the darkness. Into the woods down the two-rut driveway, knowing that my feet would tell me if I began to walk off into the woods.
I confess, I did this with my arms outstretched, even though I knew that place well. Because, well a White Pine to the nose just wasn’t worth the hubris of thinking I knew it a little too well.
I kept walking. Why my eyes weren’t adapting, I cannot tell you. But I was now fifty feet down the drive with no indication of Burt or Jenny or the dogs. And I could see absolutely nothing.
I stood still and stared and listened. Blackness. No sound. Not a peep. Not a woof. Where on earth did they go!? I kept walking but began to wonder if perhaps they hadn’t come this way after all.
So I reached into my pocket. I reached for my (I confess I did this.)… I reached for my phone, which I snapped into flashlight mode. It felt lame to do this, but I mean I was surrounded by utter, silent blackness, and it seemed equally silly at that moment to continue walking literally blindly into the woods without a light.
The camera flashlight came on. And at the very moment, there was a woof in the distance — a startled bark from a dog not used to shining iPhones in the depth of night.
“It’s ok,” I said.
“Woof,” he said.
I turned off the light. And then there were two grey-white shapes bounding at me from the darkness. And two noses sniffing at my hands. And two good dogs turning around to tell Burt and Jenny that there was in fact no need to be alarmed.