Nocturne
The privilege of assuming the best.
Around 9 o’clock last night I was leaning over the kitchen counter, texting someone. Charlie was at my feet. The windows were open, despite the thunderstorm that was fast approaching, because the spring day had been summer-like warm. Sam had gone out to walk a friend’s dog.
Suddenly, there was a close, loud boom, like a car backfiring, followed by close to a minute of rapid-fire pop-pop-pops.
Like a gun.
I was startled, but as I said, in the middle of texting someone. Curious; concerned, even, but not to the point that I was moved to stop texting to investigate after the pop-pop-popping stopped.
It got me thinking of the places I might be in the world where a loud bang followed by a near-minute of pop-pop-pops would not be texted through. Places host or hostage to drug activity, to gang violence. Places where war is raging. But those places are not where I am. Where I am people throw graduation parties and set off fireworks, which was the case in this case, and what all that pop-pop-popping turned out to be.
I know everything comes down to my particular set of circumstances. I have done nothing to earn my nonchalance. I simply find myself here. I think about those other places, other people. I try to imagine an assumption of incipient terror, death, or carnage, rather than celebration.
Through the open window the storm blows in, and with it, the smell of rain and lilacs. This is where I am, standing in my safe kitchen, my dog at my feet; so very lucky, and so very undeserving.