Nyx the Night

There is a comfort in the darkness and a beauty in it. I watch the dark constellations. I am them.

I am them over and over again, even if I am seen by mortal eyes or the eyes of what might as well be gods.

Nyx.

Night.

Not stars, not the moon.

I am no celestial body.

I am only myself.

Complete darkness.

It’s strange to watch the mortals from the darkness I recede in. They don’t actually fear me. They fear whatever I might hide. But they claim that to be my fault.

I could so easily hide them, if they paid me the same dues.

But I don’t think all mortals recognize me. Not really.

They think of me as something than myself.

That makes it so much easier to step out of the darkness and among them.

I do it quite a lot, if you can believe it. It entertains me.

What does it matter if Nyx becomes more human when they do not see me as darkness at all.

I step out of the shadows of an alley. The shadows fold around me, becoming a shawl around my shoulders and a black dress that stretches to the ground. I feel like presenting like what this current culture calls a ‘woman’ and I walk away from the shadows already trying to remember the ideals of this society. How they view each other differently, how they seem to see each other through a completely different lens when they see that they are different.

Today, my skin is a deep brown hue, my eyes darker. Today, my skin is a deep brown hue, my eyes darker. My head is crowned in a collection of purple hairclips and moon and star ear-rings dangle from my ears. This seems to be important. It seems something that the humans set great store by. That aesthetic for me.

I don’t mind it. It gets people to notice me for once. I seem to encompass their idea of beauty.

I have been visiting this same human for almost a year now. I find that to be quite interesting to see. What it is like to unite myself in human affairs and let them acknowledge me for once.

And she seems to acknowledge me whenever I visit.

I step into the usual building. The familiar flashing lights outside of it welcome me into their glow, much like how I have welcomed its patrons with open arms in the past.

It’s strange, but I still have no idea what the lights mean. They seem to spell out the symbols that this brand of humans like so much. There is also always the symbol that I have learned means that this establishment is unlocked. I have come here in the past and it would seem that a different string of symbols means that they have locked the doors.

That was an embarrassing visit. I did not want to return to the darkness to get inside, but it had been the only way. But there had been no one there - certainly not my human either.

But this time the symbol is lit up and I can easily walk through the open door. The usual tables are up and the chairs are occupied by a random selection of humans who I have no hope of recognizing.

I scan around, looking for my human.

And there she is, at what the human’s call the ‘bar.’

I walk directly toward the bar and take a different seat from the day before.

She never recognizes me.

I can only assume that this has something to do with the fact that I have never looked the same, any time I have visited her.

She also seems constantly distracted.

I try to remember her name, but once again find myself squinting at her chest, where her name tag rests. In one of my earlier forms, when I appeared as a ‘man,’ she ended up glaring at me after I did this. But she seems to ignore it when I look like a woman. This puzzles me. Why does she wear her name on her chest if she does not want me to look in that direction? Or perhaps it is how hard I look …

She crouches down so she’s meeting my eyes. And this time I blink.

“Can I help you?” she asked, maybe a bit pointedly.

Hum.

“I am sorry,” I say softly. “Was it rude to stare? Your name tag is there …?”

She looks down, as if she’d forgotten it was there in the first place.

Sarah.

That was it.

“Oh. The management sews them all there.” She sounds like she wants to complain about this, but bites her tongue. That seems to be the impression I’ve gotten from our lengthy interactions.

“Is there anything I can get you?” she asks, changing the subject as she fills up a glass of someone several chairs to my left. He looks completely distracted by the flashing box over the counter - a television - which is showing things miles and miles away. Humans passing a ball around or some such. It doesn’t involve me.

I stare up at the menu.

I know it is a menu because Sarah has told me it before.

I also know several things on the menu. They all taste the same to me, but Sarah seems to like when I order specific ones. The ones with more of those ‘numbers’ beside them.

So I pick one of the ones that have a lot of numbers and point it out with my finger.

“I would like that,” I say.

Sarah has to crane her neck to see where I’m pointing, then nods. She’s smiling a bit, so it would seem that I have pleased her. “Alright. I’ll get that right up. Anything to eat?”

I do not. It means that Sarah will not come back as often, because she fills the drinks and thinks that I do not want as much when I am eating. So I shake my head.

She nods and leaves.

I watch her go.

By the end of the night, I can sometimes get her to ask my name.

I am wondering when she will notice the pattern.

That my name always means ‘Night’ or ‘Darkness.’

But she hasn’t yet. I wonder why not. She also never really address me by any of the names either. If they are short - a couple syllables - then she sometimes does. But that does not happen often.

Even still, she does listen to me and sees me. I am just in doubt that she actually remembers me.

Though that seems to be the case for many here. I think that the man who is watching the humans toss around a ball has been here many of the nights I have been, but she pays him about the same amount of attention.

Sarah returns with the drink, setting it in front of me. I am tempted to try to speed this up tonight.

“Do you want to know my name?” I ask, arching an eyebrow.

Sarah, who’d half turned to return to her place deeper behind the bar, returned to facing me. She arched her own eyebrows, but said pleasantly, “Sure. Of course.”

“Nyx,” I say.

I used that name the first time I talked to her too, but she doesn’t seem to recognize it. She just nods and says, “Nice to meet you.”

She smiles lightly, remaining where she is, expecting me to say more probably.

I’m not sure what to say though.

She sees me, clearly, but I am doubting that she can ever know me.

I lift the glass and down it in one gulp.

When I set the glass down, she’s half gaping at me. I’ve done this once or twice with other things she has brought me in the past, but her reactions sometimes vary in shock.

But this also does not draw her attention for long. She just whistles lightly.

I watch her for a second. Eventually she asks, “Are you trying to impress me?”

I shake my head. She sounds puzzled and maybe slightly concerned, but I’m not sure how to express what I want from her.

To be seen, yes, but at the same time … I have known her when she has never seemed inclined to know me.

She shrugs, taps the counter near my glass, and says, “I’m going to hold off on refilling that until I’ve made the rounds.”

Then she walks away.

I watch her.

And puzzle over the glass, one hand reaching up to stroke the smooth edge of an ear-ring.

Then I scoot my chair back. I leave, with some of those strange human coins and paper left by the drink. (I have left without doing so before and it has made Sarah angry.)

I leave the establishment, still stroking at the ear-ring.

I walk by Sarah’s car, parked behind the building. I walked here on purpose, I think, because I slow and stop in front of it.

I frown at the car.

It is red. And old.

I wonder what to do.

I take the ear-rings off and then the hairclips. I toss them into the air where they disappear like shadows in sunlight.

And I sit on the front of the car and wait.

It takes a very long time for Sarah to leave the building. And when she does, she freezes and looks at me. She is holding something in her hands - the thing that makes the car move - and presses down on them.

Noise and lights issue from the car and I freeze where I am, shocked by the loudness.

I pull the shadows around me, suddenly, disappearing, and Sarah is left standing in the dark parking lot, with a flashing and beeping car, all alone.

Only I am still there. Almost everywhere that the light isn’t.

I watch her spin, eyes wide, terrified, shining a light into the shadows where she can. But it shows nothing and banishes me from its presence when she sweeps it over me.

I wonder what to do.

If anything.

I step out of her shadow.

She screams, holding up her key like a weapon. Stoic, but shaken.

I hold up my hands. I know this human gesture.

I wave both of them as the shadow under her car swallows me again.

Goodbye.

She shines the light after me, once a minute or so passes.

I don’t come out.

But I’m there, of course.

I’ll always be there.