As the Earth rotates on it's axis, day becomes NIGHT when it faces away from the sun. At this time, Enya can be heard singing: "Paint the sky with Stars". About 30 years ago, this was a good time to see people who dressed in polyester, big collared shirts and platform shoes who danced to the Bee Gees: "NIGHT fever Night fever"--because they all liked to do it. Most of the time, the majority of people are sleeping in their beds snoring and drooling on their pillows.

As I lay upon my bed, pondering time and letting my mind wander, I listened to the night sky tell it's story. It was a story of loneliness, innocense and terror. I was scared to sleep, afraid to breathe. I felt all my nightmares would come to life and devour me in my sleep. I stayed completely still and waited for the morning light. How I hated the night....

Here is a short paragraph I wrote about the *UNPREDICTABLE NIGHT* The night is a time of peace. Looking at the ever so beautiful stars. It's all so good until a freak destroys it with the painful sound of... *BANG* The death of someone. Their souls flying toward the stars you were looking at a minute before. Then the sound of running. You know that the beautiful night has been ruined but yet, you look forward to the next night which will be full of surprises. Will it be another murder? or will it be a quiet night with the sounds of owls. The night is full of surprises.

The night blankets the streets, while the glare of someone's highbeams makes me flinch and squint. I drive on, listening to the relentless crackle of the radio at my side as dispatchers calmly hand out the duties of death and domestic violence like playing cards with shattered faces. The music on my vehicle radio is low - I don't sing in the van at night. I watch. I watch for the barely seen black cat dancing across the road. I watch for the homeless man, wheeling his bike in the grass near the street. I watch for the red and blues, slowly pulsating as an inexorable beacon, pointing the way to the homicide or the home invasion. I watch, and I work. This is my night.

This night has been clouded by the haze of an amber liquid as yet unnamed. It's almost like honey dripping down my throat, but it stings twice as much and makes me feel fifteen times as god-like. I stare at the quickly blurring clock and realize that another five hours have passed: five long hours, spent watching the twitching whiskers of the grey cat curled at the edge of my bed. The night's too long, too dark, too peppered full of bright holes in the ceiling of my outdoor world, for me to ever feel like I am comfortable. Numbness in my fingers, toes, lips, reminds me of that.

When I look up at the night sky, I contemplate the spaces between the stars and how in some way, we are all connected. I breathe in the night air, and feel the crispness as it enters my lungs. The chilled vapor is exhaled from within creating steam that looks like smoke. Each star is an ancient light that has been carried towards my eyes through the mere act of looking. I am aware of the stillness and whatever may be beyond what we are able to observe.

The night is a hunter, there comes the wild animals. Striped from the light, sometimes its difficult to see without the street lights. It can get lonely without someone there. It's scary when you can't see beyond the oceans to the underworld. The silent night...lingers of sounds. The silence can speak. The perfect time to write. The moons shadow against my white flowing curtains, makes me wake.

in the cold dark mist it creeps up silently, its shadow falling upon us. turning the brightest days black it dampens our spirits, hindering us to rise. it brings our memories to life, memories better wished forgotten. a pale moon rises throwing into shadow all that dares to stand tall in it's colorless gaze.

Fathomless caverns of my mind unravel as the darkness descends on the world once more. I resist, fight, struggle. I don't want to go back there, I don't want to face it anymore. But fatigue wins, dragging me back into my suffocating nightmares. Struggling to break free my heart screams for salvation, for mercy from this tortuous ritual. Stirring from the hell is not nearly enough to save me anymore, not with it being an ever present reality. Monsters only come for you in the night

The night is the same as the day. only the light is a little different. players seem to come out at night. some people are night people, some people love the daylight. which is better? depends on your personality and occupation. i love both, because both serves a purpose for man. the daylight to work, the nightime to rest and recover from the daylight.

I am a man acquainted with the night. It's in those empty hours that I search for things I can never find. My deepest fears pummel me. I cry out for forgiveness, but seldom find peace. I am alone in my travels, the fortress of daylight becomes beyond my reach. In misery, I wait for the dawn. Kind of depressing, but obviously I don't like the night much.

My night falls like a warm summer breeze floating in a peaceful silence ... with the feeling of a soft silk veil passing over my skin ... It is when I sit under your star lit sky that I ponder my thoughts of you and your enchanting beauty ... I begin then to understand the vastness of your infinite universe ... At day, you shine like a beautiful laughing child, .. but it is at night, when you have the peace of a sleeping baby that you are at your best ... It is only in this night and the silence of your calmness that I understand and appreciate all life, ... It is here that I begin to conceive this great gift you have given us ... your planet Earth ... for this night I thank you.

During the night, I dress up in women's clothing and walk along Wellington Street, singing Kumbaya in the moonlight. People ask me questions, such as "What are you doing here?", "Where did you buy that handbag?" and "Are you a member of the Liberal Party?". I tell them the only thing I know: honey doesn't expire.

This is my favorite.. "Cold harted all that rule the night. removes the colour from our site, red is grey and black is white, But WE decise which is right, and which is an illusion." nights in white satain.

May not make much sense. The window is dark. I sit in the silent room, waiting for the dawn and unable to sleep. I cannot see the moon or the stars from my position -- it is as if they don't exist. Nothing seems to exist beyond the half-light cluttered loneliness of my room. Night is comfortable, in a strange way, even when your hands are cold and your body aches, because there is a kind of a warm satisfaction in being alone, and the dazed color your thoughts undertake when you haven't enough sleep. By the time you have to leave -- to school, to work -- it is as if you /were/ sleeping, in some strange way.

���It was a dark and stormy night as Vinny drove his Camaro over the Walt Whitman Bridge over to New Jersey”.

The night time is the good time in the city. Freed from the constraints of the daytime job, in darkness all the animals come out. Cars growl and hiss on the stained tarmac. People shout, laugh, and occasionally cry. In the clammy fug of mist, rain and car fumes, the orange sodium lights diffract into monochromatic starbursts. The glossy street shimmers with rainbows of spilt diesel oil. I step over unidentifiable stains on the way to the pub, where I will drink a large glass of cool beer.

The night is when the sun's not there. Which can be lots of times really. Including those times you decide to shut the door and curtains and switch off the lights. And when you dig a hole, hide in it and pull something solid over the top of you. can you feel the darkness prodding away at your eyes? That's the night - it's more complicated and common than you think.

I'll bet this is a school assignment and you are going to lift the best one! well, I give you permission! LOLOL They said on the news that there would be comet in the southwestern sky tonight, so here I am, outside, looking for it. They said, if I missed it, it wouldn't be around for thousands of years...but I can't see it. I look towards the point where it should be, but there is just dark cloud on the horizon, and the last fading rays of a magnificent sunset. A fruit bat flies overhead, searching for the figs and loquats and stone fruit trees that people have in their back yards. It is a beautiful sight, its wings wide and slightly blacker than the sky it flies beneath. Somewhere a bird gives a final cry before putting its head beneath its wings. A dog barks. A child cries. The stars blink on as the light fades. I pick out the formations my father taught me as a child. then I look back towards the southwest. Still, the clouds obscure the place where the comet is...no matter. The sky is beautiful anyway, comet or no comet. And if I miss the comet, no matter. I will see it in eternity.

I hadn't before recognized how the night would scare me before I spent that night under the stars, outdoors after dark for the first time since that several-months past event had taken place; even now, being outside in the evenings, especially alone, frightens me. It still doesn't make much sense to me now, and it certainly didn't make sense to me that night, lying on the hard grass floor as I turned over from side to side with frenzied anxiety. I tried to keep my eyes shut, but they refused do as I willed; they'd snap open, as though by a spring, and dart around. I couldn't decide which way to face, and I'd decided that by no means would I be laying on my back, for some intense fear of the position's vulnerability. It brought me back to the first weeks I'd spent in shock after that night with Zack, the ones that'd been filled with nightmares and insomnia and my nervous, dysfunctional cognative thought processing. It's dark; there was no other reason I could find to be afraid, but it seemed stupid. If I turned to lie on my right side, I could barely see Alicia there, facing me but asleep, dark crescent shadows under her eyes. I probably had them as well; we'd only just gotten over sickness. I then suddenly decided that I couldn't have my back on everyone else, and turned to my other side; all the men were sleeping on that side. I couldn't distinguish one shadowy figure from another in the darkness, but I knew where Zack was--I remembered where he'd laid himself down to sleep, remembered watching by the fading light of the sunset. I knew exactly where he was. I knew exactly where he was, and I was scared shitless. I told myself to calm down and reminded myself that he'd said he'd never do it again--and how could he, now, with all these people, out in the open? The foolish fear was unavoidable, though, and stayed in its fixed place in my head. How could I face him? But, then, how could I NOT? Panic whirred around in demented circles in my head like an excited and manic young child. I wanted to turn over, so I didn't have to face him--but I couldn't make myself move. It was as though I was stuck there, shivering and scared and cold; it was as though I was frozen. Frozen--the night had frozen me. It wished to retell that story, the one of that night, months ago--one I did not at all care to hear. Its soft winds had caught my ear and whispered; its sky, entirely void of stars, stared at me darkly. The night had taken its cold and vicious claws to my body, made it still. Those claws, so sharp and so, so cold, had traced down my back, not too harshly--not deep enough to draw blood--but just enough for me to feel them there, just enough for me to feel the chills run down my spine. It was just enough to scare me. Suddenly able to move, I flipped over again. For the brief amount of time my back had been flat against the ground, the once-cold carpet of grass had seemed to burn, and I'd become like a predator's target prey in search of a hiding place. I could lie on my sides. Sides were good. Sides were fine. I could NOT lie on my back, or else the beast would get me. I'd have been open and vulnerable to it. The night would get me; the beast would get me. The beast was going to get me. I could not lie on my back, and I could not decide which side to sleep on once more, tossing myself voraciously from right to left to right over and over and over again. The night, he grew impatient with my struggling; the night took me in his cruel grasp and forced me on my back. The beast had me; he had me! I couldn't breathe. He'd won; the beast had won. I couldn't move. The night had rendered me immobile, and he'd already, without my knowledge, forced the memory back into my mind, a seed, spreading its dark roots, cultivating itself, developing and growing and strengthening to finally dominate my mind, towering over all else. He made me cry. The night made me cry. He hurt me. The terrible beast I'd spent so long running from was hurting me. He hurt me, and I cried my eyes dry, fists clenching, sobbing silently. The night wouldn't stop; he wouldn't stop, no matter how I pleaded. And I didn't understand; why? Why was he doing this? Somehow, I cried myself to unconsciousness--or uneasy sleep, if you could call it that. The night had gotten me; the beast had gotten me. He'd gotten me. Zack had gotten me.

She stares at the heightened moon. The grass beneath her feet wet; the moisture from early afternoon still refused to retire. The stars and the sky coupled for a smeared effect in the heavens. Her scene is quiet, and at the same time, filled with eloquent sonance, product, most likely, of a gamut of insects cloaked in the overcast. A heavy essence strays aimlessly around her. An aura wraps her about, and soothes her skin, stroking gently with a diminish breeze. It’s cool. She closes her eyes, taking in the ambience. After contemplating nature’s aphotic design, she goes back in, leaving the night behind.

The night comes down quickly with a cold wind from the sea: she's home. We'll eat and shut ourselves away from the world as usual - what is there to see? Starlight, car-light and street-light compete, no-one caring who wins as long as there's one straggler, and the sky is a dark desert. There are still one or two oases in an ocean of black but it shouldn't be like this. I remember looking up as a child and seeing the band of the milky way shining like a jeweller's legacy. I remember being lost and enthralled in the endless possibilities I could see, almost reach for. We haven't seen those possibilities near home for years. Only travelling allows them to shine again, briefly. The pub at the end of the road spits out it's contents and noise as bed and sleep call to us, and we lie in the street lamp-lit dark and listen to the friendly drunks slowly leave our world and depart to their own. How nice it would be to walk in the dark, unafraid as we used to, cold hand holding cold hand against anything the world could throw at us. There's no friendly darkness to cover us anymore, to protect us from view, to dim our sight and awaken other senses. The whole day is daytime, real or artificial and the night and it's peace is just a few days of memory from last year.

Night time... when the best of me comes forth. When the profoundly blue skies turn to ash. This is when I wake. This is where I feel safe; in the arms of the unknown, in the darkness, in the saddened street corners so dull, so dead yet bursting with mystery. I walk amidst the cool air gently blowing, aimlessly. I envy its freedom, it's gradiosity, its power. If there's one person other than I roaming these deserted streets, it's the local drunk, fresh out of a bar somewhere, kicked out. But I can't see nothing but this melancholy city's dimmed streetlights, closed family owned shops. With my hands in my pocket I continue roaming. I don't where I'm going, I don't why. But I am. And it is night. And I like it.

The night is soft and warm and dark. The city is transformed from dull and grey to multicoloured pools of liquid light - bright little oases where all else is hints and shadows. Wrapped in anonymity I am restless and alive. Time to prowl...

The peaceful night shrouds the world in darkness, a darkness penetrated by the glistening stars and the velety haze of moonlight, which reveals silhouettes of bird and wildlife. The blackness hints at mysteries, mysteries that humankind have long stood and pondered as they gazed at the night sky. With the night comes dreams, dreams of discovery and adventure, and dreams of reaching the stars.

After the dry, heavy heat of the long day the air was finally cool and almost crisp. Dani turned in bed and saw Laurel sleeping soundly on her back; her long hair thrown up over the pillow and her arms also lifted to let every bit of the sweet breeze from the open windows caress her skin. Slowly, so as not to wake her, Dani slipped from the bed and walked to the kitchen for a glass of water; and then stepped outside. She looked up at the inky night sky, enjoying the stars that were flung like diamonds across it, picking out patterns she'd known since she was a child. The darkness and the cooler air made her feel suddenly very alert and stirred her memory.

Despite the bustle and excitement of the day, night is when I feel the most alive. The rushing people weary me and the brightness blinds. I long for the soft darkness of the night, when the air takes on a new and indescribable smell - almost a new texture. I love the passing faces cloaked in shadow, the striving to recognize a world I see every day. I love the new clarity that comes with darkness - that now I can no longer simply see and judge, but must feel, perceive, and think. The sun gives light, but darkness illuminates.

Ardrossan vs Manhattan night time is a blanket that covers different parts of the world at different times. where i live this means that all of the thugs, unrulies and juvenile delinquents come out of hiding especially at the weekend on Manhattan Island the lights of broadway and Times square are so luminous that the actual sky is barely visible at all if the moon is out it is cast into an invisibility cloack from the neon lights of the city!

I can't see the stars. Too much interference, too much pollution, too much light. Night lasts six months at the poles, but here, here in the city, night never really comes. Not true night, just a poor imitation. People sleep on either way; if you've never seen a starry sky expand infinitely above you, than the sickly purple glow won't bother you, why should it. But for those who know that there lies something far above the oppressive veil of light that shrouds the city, every street lamp and every illuminated concrete box stands in open defiance of heaven's beauty. I can't see the stars.

Who turned of the fucking light?

Darkness embraces the sky. Each twinkling eye, in its time, smiles upon the world. Frog's and cricket's lullabyes float through the air. The absence of heat seeps into my skin. Ink shadows dance with evening's breath across the dampened grasses. Life has found it's resting place. Kim

Prelude That which was then….. The cold harsh wind whipped tears from my eyes and the rain beat down in sheets that soaked through my clothes. Thick black clouds covered what slice of moon had risen after darkness fell; and the jagged lighting that split the sky was the only true light we had to see with. My poor horse was soaked by the storm, as was I. He must have thought me daft; yet he carried me willingly. I had needed a dark night, one I could hide within, a night with no brilliant moon dancing upon the water of the moat. A cold night too was a kindness. I wanted no servants to stray for an evening walk or to keep a lovers’ tryst. If any had seen me move in secret amidst the shadows of the night, surely they would have given my parents word of what they had seen.

Night creeps in on bended knee bearing gifts of dreams - of magically transforming me into a flight attendant with an emergency shift at a strange airport in less than an hour; of beasts struggling for world domination on the roof of my house; of recollections misremembered from a childhood a half century ago. Nightly, I surrender to the siren call of night's promise of entertainment and revelation. Alack and alas, night is of Buddha nature, giving away the gifts of prescience and memories and taking them back at dawn's edge.

I remember looking out of the window towards the velvet mountains covered in a cloak of darkness. Winds were blowing laced with beautiful snow flakes.my hands began to shiver and you held my palms close to you with a mysterious expression lighting your tanned face. You looked at me once and looked away towards the mountains, face full of unspoken promises. So I let you go knowing that I may never see your face ever again, my beautiful stranger.Then the night came shrouding you in its knightly splendour and took you away from my gypsy heart forever.

I wonder if we would have as much technology today if we could not see the stars at night! We needed to see the stars and the moon and the sun to tantalize us into reaching outward to new realms! Imagine a cloud covered world that prevented anyone from seeing the stars or even the moon clearly at night! Would we ever have any idea what is beyond our world? Or simply another world that has no moon at all! Would they be bold enough to take that first enormous step to other worlds in their own star system? We need the moon to imagine other worlds, we need the Sun to imagine other star systems, and we need the stars to know how far the amazing universe truly is and always has been!

Imagine a world that has no night! It has twin binary Suns that constantly revolve, one trading places with the other! A world of perpetual daylight! Even in the deepest caves the radiation from those Suns reaches down to touch the only lifeforms to be found on that world! What kind of society would exist when you have no night to cool your senses or darkness to hide the wrongs!

The tempature hit 104 degrees today. Right now, according to the thermometer on the porch it's 98.2 degrees. Out of curiosity, I dig through my medicine chest and find my electronic thermometer. I place it under my tongue, close my eyes and wait for the beep. When it arrives I pull it out and read the screen: 98.2. This unsettles me, though I'm not entirely sure why. I'm a living, vital young woman and it's strange to think of the night as something living and vital as well. If I went outside would it be humdidity or hot breath that would envelop me? Is what I hear in the distance heavy bass from the radio of a passing car or is it the steady beating of the night's heart? I'm shaken so I bolt the door shut instead of opening it to find out.

I wrote this entire freestyle thing about the night some months ago, but it's a little too long, and nonsensical except for me, to post here. But here's one paragraph from it. -People have chased the night, while some have been chased by it. It inspires magic and unforgettable memories, weather by a lake or in the back seat of a car, it has also drawn fear and sorrow, with murder and fits of drunken bouts, where the night has taken away sanity and left us raving at the moon...given back again by the day, only to define night as even more mysterious, frightening and alluring. Watch a tree during the day, it is naught but a tree. See this same tree during the dead hours of the night on a moonless sky, and it becomes everything. A graveyard is serene and nice during the day, but it lives during the night. The dead they whisper, the grass it dances, and the wind it caresses.-

[Spent a couple of nights of my last vacation at my parents' place on Lake Freeman, a small, man-made lake in Monticello, IN. Went outside and sat, watching, listening ... ] *** Peace and Quiet? (On Lake Freeman at 1:30AM) Sounds -- Crickets, Grasshoppers, Beetles, and other chirping bugs sound like the a-rhythmic ringing of Jingle-Bells Water softly pat-pat-pats against the bank Leaves rustle sounding like rushing water in the breeze Ducks tell each other jokes and laugh A goose honks Big fish break the lake's surface with a splash Small fish break the surface sounding like a drop of water dropped from a height Dogs occasionally bark to each other in the distance and receive answers A car door or trunk is closed across the lake Distant vehicles sound like strong gusts of wind except that the sound moves with a Doppler Effect Those vehicles' motors can sometimes be heard One or two crickets or small frogs solo in counter to the cacophony of the Jingle-Bells A large splash near the shore (a fish?) sounding like a swimmer leaving the water A man's voice says something unintelligible (a bullfrog?) A sound not unlike a dumpster's lid being closed bangs across the lake Sights -- Stars shining through pin-holes in the dark blue-black sky Dam lights glare amber, red and off-white A few "night-lights" shine directly onto the water Bluish tinted glowing around some trees and houses A deep steel-blue glow (lighter than above) reflects in the water to the northwest Shore-trees are black except near lights where they almost look green Street and security lights are revealed when the breeze moves the leaves out of the way A flashlight or lantern shows white then red and moves around (a night fisherman or kids camping?) Water reflecting the lights seems to move upstream away from the dam A big black shape (a bird) lands on the railing not six feet away from me to say "hello" and "good-bye" Written September 7, 1997 © 1997 by Bill Sanders ----------

The night can be a gentle blanket protecting your slumber. The night can be a cruel cover hiding the lurking evil.

Night falls and so do all the facades. A fourteen year old girl lets go of the strength she pretends to have every day, and silences her cries in her pillow. Drops of black sorrow fall down her cheeks staining them with her pain. Her eyes are squeezed tight in her refusal to see reality. Waiting to be numbed by sleep she can't stop herself from being vulnerable when no one will tear her apart. The lies of today merge with the lies of yesterday and the memories of all she's done to be someone haunt her. All the girls who she teased every day for not looking perfect or being a certain way, could have been her before she traded the truth and herself for cruelty and false popularity. She was haunted by the looks in their eyes as she walked down the halls everyday pretending not to see what she knew they saw. The hatred in so many of their faces astounded her. Faces who didn't hate her for who she was but for who she had become. Power rippled around her as the girls who fed themselves on lies instead of food walked at her side. She pushed away the revolting understanding that the only reason they had power was because the girls watching her walk by were afraid of her, afraid of what more she could do to hurt them. Laying on her bed as her body raked with sobs, she put one hand on her ribs that she could no longer pretend didn't stick out. She shuddered as hunger cramps ran from her spine down her back to her empty stomach. It brought back the feeling that somehow she had still lost even though she was skinny, and she went to parties and faced no consequences for rumors she and her peers started. The look in the eyes of the girls who refused to play the games she lived and breathed disturbed her. That morning as her group was at cheerleading practice she walked down the halls and saw pity in their eyes. She didn't want to look but she kept glancing back- they pitied her. When night falls so do the lies beaten down by the truth of memories. So do the girls who gave everything up blinded by the promises that would only be broken. Night falls and even the strongest fighters break, when night comes so does the hope that these girls can break and then learn what to fight for. The fourteen year old girl gets up and walks down the stairs to her mother sitting on the couch. "Mom, I'm hungry." The facade falls.

It came again last night. I could hear it's disctintive snuffling sounds as it weaved it's way towards me. It only ever comes during the hours of darkness. I can hear it scuttling about underneath the trees at the end of the garden. Then silence. It stops suddenly and I wait, straining to hear movement. Silence. Perhaps it has gone away and I feel it is safe to go into the garage and empty the water bottle from the tumble-dryer. I remove the bottle and it is full and difficult to carry. I open the garage door and strain my eyes scanning for any signs of life. But of course, everything is shrouded in darkness. I emerge and make my way across the patio to the edge of the lawn to the where the bird-tab;e stands. There is no sound in garden at all. With haste, I quickly turn the bottle upside down and freezing cold water comes gushing out .............and lands right on top of the hedgehog and gives it the shock of it's life. It was drenched and as a result, spent the next hour, sitting on the grass, too scared to move in case it happened again. Oops.