Sean Thomas Dougherty
Smoking on Break: Diptych: Third Shift
And there is a full moon, blood red from an eclipse, the earth casting shadows even at 3 AM, and I am cupping my hands against the cold spring wind to light a cigarette, before I open the door and walk back into my facility and walk the hall to make sure everyone is asleep or if anyone needs my help, or woke up not knowing where they are, or even my name. To reassure the lost, to guide them back to bed, and I think what would it be like to be the moon, guiding ships home to shore or harbor, and how during his time stationed on the Korean border my friend Steve told me that he was told to cup his cigarette with his hands, in case some brave sniper might want to take a shot at him. Or the way a priest will light a candle and then cup the flame. Oh, moon who now is cupping their hands around me as I stand in the night wind, who is cupping this earth and sending you her long shadow?
But there is work to do: paperwork, and mopping, prepping breakfast, and then a man has peed his bed. I guide him to the shower as he curses me, I must gather his sheets, and chuck pads and take them to the laundry room. I have to help him dress and ease him back to bed. And I close the door and hear him sigh himself to sleep, speaking in low and wisping tones. I do all this with trained detachment. All of this is labor. Do not be fooled. The moon is a cold lifeless place whose light is an illusion borrowed from the sun. But as I bend to pick up my bucket, I look up and out the hall window. I look across the yard to see a herd of does with fawns. They stand perfectly still. Their hides mottled with moonlight, glistening like apparitions, and for a moment I believe I could die right here happy if they are the last thing I will behold on this holy earth.