In my bedroom, when I finally go to sleep at night, there is a reflection on the wall. It is created by the flower box outside my window, the globe light across the street, and the mini-blinds in my interior window. I call the image "shades of night.gif", and as I wait for sleep time, I think of things that I want to accomplish in my life. This includes the real visions and the virtual additions to Aneeza's Cottage. Over the years, I have had my criticism for being a "night owl". You, who are also afflicted, know what I mean.

It has never been a deficiency I could correct. It isn't a matter of going to sleep because I need my rest, or because that seems to be what the populace accomplishes at night.

From my earliest recollection, I was a nocturnal being. I can remember, as a child, being in bed at night and hearing the sounds of the silent night, except for an occasional turn or "snarf for air". I was busy making mountains and valleys out of my covers and seeing what faces existed in the rosebud wallpaper. The worst thing about my creative ambitions was that it was dark, and it was difficult to see.

A seemingly uneventful happening led to new excitement in my juvenile nocturnal existence. I lost a bit of white enamel from my mouth, which wrapped in a tissue, was to summon the tooth fairy.

Having carefully placed this package under my pillow, I awaited the magical being who would come and collect my tooth and leave something wonderful. Time passed, gnarlies formed in the rose bud wallpaper; but no fairy of any kind.

Finally sleep.

Morning was an ugly thing. It came just about the time I was really getting into the best fantasies. (((((BLANG!))))) Alarms sound and it is business as usual. Get up. Get dressed. Eat cardboard food with milk poured over it. Please...I'll catch the next bus.

Should I slide my hand under the pillow? Surely, the night fairy did not come, because I was awake waiting. But there is something. What can it be beneath my beloved feather pillow? It isn't the package I left the night before. With great anticipation, I slide my prize out into the daylight. Packaged in cardboard under a plastic bubble pack is a penlight flashlight. Oh what happiness. This fairy understands me. I can hardly wait for night to descend. I will be able to illuminate the night!

Over the course of my enamel losses, I acquired a great library of Superman comics and Golden Library books; all lit by my precious penlight globe. Only once did the fairy confuse me. Waking one vile morning, I felt a cramp in my neck. My pillow was at an odd tilt. Extracting the lump from my pillow produced a trio set of Pla-Dough. What can you do with clay at night....even with the precious penlight?

I never did meet the mystical phantom of the night known only as the "tooth fairy". The only hint I had of its existence was the faint smell of vanilla/cherry cigar smoke after a visit.

One time, after I was old enough to stay up at night, I went with my dad to close the family business; and I did see where the "tooth fairy" kept its stash of goodies...and there was the wonderful scent of vanilla/cherry cigar smoke.

In Loving Memory of My Dad
February 18, 1916~March 28, 2000The Story Teller continues now....

ONE SCARY NIGHT

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