Another sip of hot, honey-sweetened chamomile tea. More clock ticks, and the hum of the refrigerator. Soft light from the new stainless-steel ceiling fan illuminates both the walls’ yellow eggshell finish and the golden brown of our “Grandma’s” table.
If not for the hour, this could be morning.
But it’s not morning: it’s half-past eleven at night. In less than five-and-a-half hours, the alarm will sound. But here I am, sipping my cooling tea to soothe my restless mind and fatigue-ached body.
A nameless grief groans within, but my effort to listen to it gags it. And images arise again, the same revolting, enticing ones that so often do at times like these. When sleep eludes, while time passes.
Deep dark even on Sunday night highway traffic
Photo by Cloris Ying
first published in Image Curve, March 19, 2020
for Poets and Storytellers United’s Writers’ Pantry #12: You Gotta Know When to Hold ‘Em (posted by Rommy)
Frank J. Tassone 
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