Traveling In The Dark

 

There was a little boy traveling in the dark. He was looking for a place to sleep. He had woken up in a strange place just a while ago.

Before going to bed he remembered sitting in front of a wall that was a window. He hardly blinked at the tall buildings he could look down upon. Everywhere was cement. There were two huge cranes perched on top of skyscrapers right out there. A slithering snake of lights flickered around a wide arc and between the buildings. Mama said that was the big road they had come on to the city. But it looked more like an electric monster in the dark, tall, hard place like nowhere he could remember.

It was puzzling exactly how he had fallen asleep since he was sure he promised himself he would not until he was home. The room smelled funny here. The air was loud! The sheets were scratchy. So when he woke up of course they had to leave and there was no way he was changing his mind about it. Why couldn’t his parents understand? It was simple. Just go home now. That is all. They sure looked terrible as they took him down to the car.

As tired as he felt it still was pretty keen to see all the green and red lights lined up as they drove down the city street. Kind of made him want to sing and dance and tell jokes. Then they came to the high bridge and it was dark all around. That felt quieter. Then there were trees and houses all around and it looked a lot like Gramma’s street.

The scary stuff was pretty far away now. And he was so very tired and relieved to have escaped that nasty room. Traveling in the dark like this with Mama and Papa was pretty familiar . He was in the car all strapped into his special seat. All that seemed OK.

Next thing he knew he woke up in the hotel room again but this time it smelled like coffee. Then he found out there was a hot tub and a cool pool up the elevator on the top floor.  Swimming was one of his favorite things. They even had puffy arm bands he could borrow.