The Night

The night oozed across the sky, swallowing up the blue in an inky blackness. The bright orange ball of fire that lit the earth and provided it warmth and life, edged farther across the sky in an attempt to evade the overwhelming darkness. But to no avail. Within minutes, the night had swallowed up the sun. 

A tremble ran through the boy as he watched the sun’s descent and disappearance from the mouth of the cave he called home. His hand ran over the line of blood on the wall that marked the size he’d been when his father had left. He was now about two hands taller. But that didn’t make him any less fearful of the night. 

In the distance, the sounds changed. The calm of day gave way to the cacophony of night. Growls and ear shattering screams. Chirping of insects. The forlorn calls of large beasts of prey. The whistling wind passing the entrance of the cave.

The boy took a step away from the opening and looked up at his mother. He’d been watching the sun all day. Watching it crawl across the sky. He’d urged it to run, afraid it would be caught again. But the ball of fire seemed too arrogant to heed his warning. As though it couldn’t remember being eaten by the night only one day before.

“Come, child. It’s time to sleep.”

“But the light. Will we see it again?”

Wrapping the boy in her arms, the mother replied, “We can only hope.”

The two of them lay down side by side. The only thing separating them from the hard stone floor of the cave was a soft animal skin dried out by the boy’s father.

“When will my father return?”

The mother lay silent for a moment before answering. “He is already here, my child. Everywhere around us.”

“But I don’t see him.”

“No. I suppose you don’t.” She sighed in the darkness. He’d been gone for many suns now. The child could probably barely remember the large man he had once called father. Let alone see him in the cave he had provided for their safely. In the hunting skills he had passed on to his wife. In the songs he had taught them. In the child’s face. 

The soft snoring of the boy filled the cave, and the mother let a single tear run down her cheek. She hated the dark, if only for the questions and the following silence. And the wondering. She didn’t wonder anymore if she would see her husband again. She knew the answer to that. But she always wondered if she would see the sun again. If she would get to watch it rise in the sky pushing back against the powers of the night to take its place in the heavens.

A snuffling sound outside the cave caught the woman’s attention. She lay still, listening. Waiting to see if the beast would pass them by. A small snort made her jump. But it never entered the cave. And soon, it was gone.  

She was just drifting off to sleep, when a loud crashing sound startled her awake. Listening to the distant calls of the huge land beasts, she shivered in her bed. It was one of them that had taken her husband. A long-necked thing that could reach into their cave without even coming up the small hill it rested in. “Dinosaur!” he had yelled. Just before it had pulled him out and taken him away. 

It had been the middle of the night, then too. And the child had awoken the following morning with questions about where he was. When he was going to return. 

And she had been unable to answer them, then. She had hoped that he might survive the night. That he might fight his way from the beasts and back to their cave. That he might return, maimed but alive.  

But he never had.

And now she knew he wouldn’t.

The crashing stopped and the beasts stopped their calling and the woman settled back into her bed, and tried once again to go to sleep.

Some time later a hissing near her foot woke her up. Deftly, she reached out into the dark, following the sound, and grabbed the viper behind the head. Then she hit its head against the wall. 

The silence returned and the snake stopped moving. She flung it to the far side of the cave, happy that breakfast had been brought to them, so she wouldn’t have to worry about where their next meal would come from. 

Hours passed, or maybe minutes. The dark had blanketed the woman in a deceptive calm, and she was deep in the land of dreams. Then something pulled her out. What it was, she didn’t know. She lay still, frozen with fear in the eerie quiet of the night. 

A twig snapped. Just outside the cave. Two glowing eyes appeared. And in their faint light, the tusks of a saber tooth tiger could be seen.

Just then, the boy rolled over.

And the cat leapt.

The woman threw herself toward the tiger, tackling it to the ground. She might not see the sun again, but she would do everything in her power to make sure her child would.

The two rolled around on the cave floor, the woman trying desperately to hold the great head away from her throat, while also searching for something to hit it with. Something that would kill.

But the inky night wouldn’t reveal any weapons to her. And soon her strength gave out.

The tiger sank its tusks into her throat and she gasped for air. But the night wouldn’t even provide her with that. When her writhing finally stopped, the tiger quietly dragged her away.

And the night became quiet.

Hours later, the boy rose from his bed, unaware of what had happened only a few feet from him. He stretched his arms wide and smiled with relief when he saw that the light was back in the sky. The sun had returned and was once again traipsing across the endless blue. The night had gone.

And once again, he had hope.

He picked the snake up from the floor and sat down in the cave entrance, no longer afraid of what lay outside his home. He knew his mother would be pleased with him if he could skin this snake by himself. So, he began the difficult task of skinning and watched the forest around him, as he waited for his mother to return.