Being Watched

Do we really know what we see at night, even when we see it?

Night seemed to be the only time Divelle could be to herself, as tho she were all that mattered. She climbed into bed and let her thoughts rule all around her. Her judgment, her perception was dominant. Nothing else prevailed. She breathed deeply, slowly closing, then opening her eyes as she exhaled. Her eyes made out nothing in the dark. All that ruled was her mind, her being. Soon she would sleep, but only as she permitted. The way she wanted it to be. 

She cast her eyes to the wall, still content with her placement. There was nothing to distract her ideas, no intrusion. She was relaxed. She was comforted. The outside world did not exist, could not intrude, only unless she allowed it. 

Playfully, Divelle reached her hand out in the dark to the window she knew was there, but could not see. She felt the corner of the frame with her finger, sliding it down the edge to the base. She breathed deeply once more, then moved her hand along to clash with the curtain, feeling the unimpressive fabric in her hand. She rustled it between her finger and thumb. Drab texture. She loved being in charge of what she called as wrong with no one disagreeing. Maybe she would change out the curtains, maybe not. 

Divelle lifted the curtain away from the window, allowing only a tiny triangle of moonlight to appear in the corner. She pulled the curtain away some more, only to see black, with a few outlines running along the night sky above. Trees? A street sign? 

She heard no traffic. Saw no headlights. The window faced out away from any commotion. Slowly she peeled the curtain back even further. She didn't want to reveal too much of herself to the outside world. She wanted to remain concealed, where they would never find her, but she wanted to view the items and images of the night that she could. 

In the clear dark sky, Divelle saw not a single cloud, just jutting branches from the trees, and then there was the white spotlight of the moon. It seemed lower than usual, not that she ever really examined the moon's placement on a regular basis. Usually she kept the curtain pulled to, as she thought, so no one outside would ever know she was there, but tonight, this one time, she felt bold and wanted to take in all she could see. 

She reclined and looked up at the moon, in the stillness, in the seemingly dark blue sky, motionless, pristine and bright. Something such as the moon meant nothing to Divelle. She was but a simple woman, lost in her thoughts, ready to ease into slumber, a slight smile of contentment came upon her face. Her hand relaxed at holding back the curtain, gradually letting it go, but the curtain was still held back by her extended hand and the rumpled blanket. 

Divelle sighed quietly, looked away from the window, ready to let the curtain conceal her once more from the outside. She would assist the curtain in shutting out the sights beyond the glass and she slowly clutched the material to pull it toward her, immersing her in the dark room once more, when a bird flitted across the tree far way, her only detecting it because it flew directly in the path of the lunar sphere. 

There was something odd about the bird's movement, she felt. It jutted at such a sharp angle. She was at a point where there was only a nearly small sliver of visibility outside for her to view, but she could see the moon still and the trees. She continued watching to see if the bird flew again. 

Maybe it wasn't a bird, she thought. Maybe it was a UFO. How uninteresting, she decided. 

Once again, Divelle allowed that faint smile and was ready to slowly pull the curtains to a close on the brightness of the night, when the sight occurred she never imagined seeing. 

The large pale orb of the moon seemed to slowly shift, offering some form of movement. What was she seeing? Was it going quarter or half-moon? But she shouldn't be able to see it occur. 

Divelle sat perfectly still, not moving her hand or arm, barely blinking. She wanted to see what would happen next. Her eyes looked at the white disc as long as she could, until finally she had to moisten them once more, and she blinked. 

And in that instance, she saw a shadow turn, an image move on the moon's surface. What was it? Was there someone alive on the moon? 

Divelle decided when next she had to blink, she would close one eye, hold it close, then open it and do the same with the other eye. When the moment arrived, she closed one eye to still observe the heavenly body, tho now, in conjuction with her wink, it seemed the dark sky above and below the moon closed over the round light, shutting out all traces of the circle. In astonishment, Divelle quickly opened both eyes to make certain she was seeing this spectacle clearly, and then, as if in response, the cover of the night gave way in turn, to reveal the moon once more high up in the sky. Divelle stared unmoving at what just happened. 

The moon had winked, like a gargantuan eye. She detected a slight fluctuation continuing within the moon's surface, as tho it were still looking about, then it was motionless once more. Could she reach her phone and wink again and record this sight? She couldn't think of what to do and the thought crossed her mind that to wink, the moon now must be looking at her again. Slowly she reached for her phone, not taking her eyes off of the moon. She fumbled with the phone a bit, but couldn't draw it off the nightstand in her hand. Before she dropped it, she decided she needed to view the phone in a split-second, if at all possible, to get hold of it in her palm. She took a deep breath, leaned back, looking very calmly at the moon in the night sky, then quickly turned in the direction of the nightstand to seize the phone and bring it forth and snap a picture. She got her fingers around the phone and quickly turned back to the window to view outside once more. She screamed in astonishment and threw the phone up in the air, placing both her hands to her mouth. She detected the phone had dropped to the bed, but that was the least of her concern right now. She held her hands to her mouth, pressing them against her face, definitely staring out the window with not a single blink of her eyes. 

The entire perception of outside her window was filled with pale illumination, from the base of the window to as high up as she could see. Gradually, Divelle loosened the hold on her mouth, but very slowly. There were no longer silhouetted treetops or a distant building outline in the dark to see. Just the large bright light of the moon. Divelle reached out to the curtain and pulled it back just a bit, enabling her to see up toward the top of the window, as far as she could see. It was all one solid color of moonlight. She noticed the curtain was moving as she held it. Was the figure shaking the building? She then realized it was her own hand shaking the curtain. She released the curtain and sat back. She licked her lips and permitted herself to relax. Her right hand slowly slid down and clamped the phone. She wanted to have it, just in case. 

But now she calmed a bit more and recalled her own need to exist and be in control, and now here she was being observed by this enigma from outer space. She didn't know what anyone else could see. She didn't hear any screams. No one was knocking at her door. She heard no sirens, no rescue helicopters flying about. She couldn't tell how near or how far away the sphere might be. She surmised it to be a gigantic eye, but had nothing to confirm that theory, other than the awkward wink from earlier. And whatever was going on was clearly mightier than she, so that was when Divelle decided to give in to the entity's perception and, managing a bit of a faint smile, Divelle this time deliberately and oh so intentionally did a wink. She then rested back, bringing the phone up toward her face to see what might happen if she needed to start recording, and waited to see what occurred. 

There seemed to be such a long hesitation as she stared into the brightness, waiting to document the next event. She finally decided to start recording, to capture any occurrence. She was just about to boldly wink again, when she perceived the moon seemed to be growing darker. Was it moving away from her. She didn't want to divert her vision, for fear that was when something might happen and she may not record it, but she looked up to see if there might be any sort of movement outside and she spied the night sky overhead. When she returned her gaze to the moon, it was smaller, as if it were moving away. She had the phone recording, but something told her there would be nothing detectable. She waited until it seemed the moon was a believable distance away, then stopped recording to look at the phone. As she started playing the video, she suspected she knew how it would appear. Sure enough, the image just seemed like she was slowly panning away from the moon, going from up close to far away. 

She set the phone down and looked at the sole occupant in the night sky, as tho everything she had experienced, she must have been dreaming. Well if that was the way it was going to be, she returned her phone to the nightstand, leaning outward away from the window into the darkness to set the phone back on the smooth solid surface. There was a moment's hesitation before she turned back, realizing she had no idea what the moon might be doing now. Maybe she did dream it all. She turned back to view out the window. 

The night was dark. Barely visible trees outlined in the stillness. The moon appeared far above the trees, just sitting in the sky, still quiet. It all must have been a dream, Divelle concluded. It never happened. She reached down to pull the blankets up to her neck, then started to pull the curtains close, so she would be alone again in the bedroom. 

The window vibrated and there seemed to be a whoosh of air. The blankets in Divelle's hands seemed to lift up, ever so slightly as she had pulled on them, nearly covering her face. She honestly thought she heard a thump of some kind outside. The rushing air seemed to prevent her ability to breathe as she suddenly spied an undeniable crater on the moon's surface. And the crater was growing every larger in size. 

Divelle screamed and flew out of the bed, tossing the blanket away from her. She made her way out of the door into the hallway and stood there, gasping for air. The bedroom was ablaze in thin shadows, but seemed filled with light as tho she had turned on the switch. Gradually the light departed, but Divelle remained fixated in the hallway. All light left the dwelling and still she didn't move. Finally she entered the room once more, worn out from this mad chase, and she reclined once more on the bed. She was tired. She reached down to grab the blankets and pull them upon her. Whatever the rush had all been about, while it didn't seem to affect the curtains at all, now the curtains were pulled back over the window, closing out all observation of the outside events. 

Divelle sat a moment and actually pondered pulling the curtain back once more, to show she wasn't afraid, but decided against it. She wasn't afraid, as long as what was out there remained out there, and she suspected it would. She wouldn't welcome it unto her presence at all, or even again, if that was what she had done earlier. She would leave it be. She could do nothing for it. 

As she allowed her thoughts to return to potential sleep once more, she detected the outside night seeming to grow even darker. Was the moon winking again? No, she decided. It was just possible clouds rolling by.