The nights were as dark as I imagined them to be. Heavy and pure like a carbon blanket. But there were darker shadows, and they’d dance amidst the light of the paper moon, pressing against the wall, darkness against darkness. I felt the veins of my wrist pulse on the verge of bursting. I pressed a finger to the tender swell of skin, closed my eyes, and, hearing the pound of waves upon the earth with a new sincerity, believed them to be calling out to me. That I was a naiad of lakes, and the ocean’s incessant roar was a desperate cry for me. It pleaded in a distant voice, a deep pulse far greater than the one that echoed through my fingertips. But it was calling out to me, I soon realized, just as it called out to everyone else, in a desperate voice invisible to all save those who listen. 

The nights were as dark as I imagined them to be. Sometimes there were two moons in the sky; other times, none at all.