In The Dead of the Night

06 | bright waters

I leaned back on the tree trunk and watched closely as the shadows shifted to cover my legs in an intricate pattern of broken branches and wilted leaves. Years ago, I would've thought those monsters formed from the shadows were scariest things any person could face. Since then, I'd learned what real monsters were made of. 

Shawn and I had spent almost the entire day at the café, listening as Shania and Mr. Sunny spilled stories from their childhoods together. They would chime in and finish each other's sentences the way only two people who knew everything about each other would. Their stories were nearly as sweet as the squares of cake Shania offered us before we left- warm with nostalgia and fresh with new memories. 

Now, I thought about these stories during the last few moments before midnight. I couldn't find enough courage to go any farther into the forest, but just enough to stand at the edge of it where I could still see the faint outline of the moon behind the clouds watching me. 

I pushed myself off the trunk and walked along the border of trees. I dragged my hand over each tree until I reached the opposite end, stopping again to watch. On either side of the warehouse, there were two dark, rectangular shapes nailed against the wall. They were ladders, I figured, and they led to the top of the building. Before I could question it, I ran to the warehouse. 

The ladder was thick and solid, with a black coat of paint that did no good to hide the bumps of rust underneath. The space between each of the giant rungs was nearly as tall as my entire leg, and when I leaned one foot on the bottom rung, it creaked like a tired groan. 

As I experimented my weight on the next rung, scraps of metal cutting into my hand, I couldn't help the thought that at the top of the building, there might've been something beautiful. For years, I'd been associating rooftops with beauty, after all of the picturesque, glowing sunrises I had witnessed. They seemed especially beautiful when compared with the broken glass and red-faced fathers I usually came from, their silence calming and their beauty numbing. 

I reached my hands up, like reaching for those dark grey clouds that were sure to start pouring with heavy rain any second, and pulled my entire body weight to get to the next rung. There was something that lit up inside of me when I did something as taxing as this was sure to be, and right then, my determination seemed to be that very thing lighting on fire. Sometimes, it didn't matter what was at the top of the ladder for me to want to fly up it. 

When I reached the midpoint of the ladder, I whipped my body around just in time to be flattened against the wall by the winds. The clouds shifted with a deep rumble, their thick puffs of smoke so close I could stand at the top of the ladder and pull a piece off. 

I snapped my body back to the ladder before the wind could catch my outstretched form and blow me off the rows and rows of rungs I'd covered. 

Looking up at the clouds was like looking into last night's memories to reminisce on the adventures of your latest dreams. There were only a few rungs left before I reached the top of the building, and my suspicions about being able to touch the clouds looked not too impossible now. 

I lugged my body up the last rungs one after another, ignoring the burning pain in my shoulders and back. I jumped from the final rung and rolled onto the cold concrete without a spare thought. My body rolled a few times before breaking open under the pressure of the wind, and I laid flat on the roof, laughing. Adrenaline was no new sensation to me, but, with how exhilarated this made me feel, it might as well have been. 

I stood up from the concrete and stretched my hand up like I could truly touch the storm clouds. For a second, I hesitated, scared of a judgment that wasn't even there. Then, I let myself yell at the top of my lungs into the open air, a loud rumble from the clouds sounding at that exact moment, our two voices blending together like an imperfect, but shameless, harmony.