Entropy

The nights were long in Yemen in those days.  It was December, and any light from the village refused to grace the camp, mercifully allowing the darkness to permeate the place, dampening the sorrow and despair, giving one more evening of respite to the women and children cloistered there. I loved the night. I too needed refuge, not from a war or poverty or disease, just from the emptiness inside me, just needed a place to thrive. I worked and played and plodded through the day, but I loved the promise of  each new night.

Typically, the evening began with five or six children romping around my shack, tustling over cassette tapes, pens, and exercise books.  Eventually, they would put aside their jealousies and unite in a harried demand - show them the same card trick they had seen dozens of times, sing my Arabic tea song, or go outside and jump rope for a time. On other nights I would read to them in a language they did not understand, or put four of them in my bathtub (a wheelbarrow) and tool them around the camp  till I tired.  Some nights they ignored me completley and played somber and contrived games, each taking turns at dictating capricious rules and engineering demands on the decorum of the event.  At eight or so, their mothers would call, and each in turn would rise, smack me gently somewhere on my body and skip on out the door.  I am still not sure how this ritual got started, but I did not mind it.

Once they had left, I slid into the greased groove of my evening.  I would boil some water for tea with cinnamon bark, cloves, and cardamom, and sit up on my bed drinking while I read a Rita Dove poem.  I would write a letter or read a bit more, then I would turn off the lamp and lay in silence for a few hours, praying for equilibrium.  Eventually, my mind would clear, the events of the day would dissipate, and I would gaze out the window at a million stars, lost in the silent serenity of space.  My schemes and hopes and dreary dreams would stubbornly evaporate, and I would nestle down and wait.  Wait for the warm, wet darkness to creep in, wait for it to envelope me in its brooding succored embrace. Then that which was inside of me, that nothingness of place, would draw itself out in intercourse with the salubrious vacuum of space. And for several hours afterward, be connected peacefully to time and heaven's fate, eyes closed languishing in an ethereal tranquil state.  I loved the night.