Night...

That night was darker than any before it. Dark and silent. Only the faint moaning of the sea could be heard, as its waves broke softly against the shore. Somewhere, the wind played—but even it seemed bored by the quiet, dark coastline and the slumbering town in the distance. Its dim lights tried to stretch toward the beach, to comfort the sighing sea, to beckon the wind into play. But the invitation went unanswered. The wind was unmoved by silk curtains billowing in open windows, or by the scent of blossoms drifting from windowsills. It wandered instead through the narrow streets of the shadowed town, half-lost, half-dancing, roaming with no purpose—like one of those aimless summer nights when the air is too still to care. It drifted, searching for nothing, wanting nothing. Perhaps that is why the sea moaned softly in the dark—because no one had given her the chance to rage. To the wind, she was no companion tonight.

The sleeping town beyond the bay was far more intriguing. There, the wind could slip quietly between alleys and hide in the labyrinth of streets, free to wander without witness, free to look for an exit that did not exist. And so it wandered—peering here through an open window, making the silk curtain stir at its breath before letting it fall still again. Sighing there, sending a cool gust into a room heavy with dusk. Elsewhere, it crept timidly inside, brushing its cold hand over the damp hair of a sleeping soul before vanishing once more through the same half-open window.

That night, the wind drifted through the silent town like a restless spirit. Yet there was peace in its roaming—a chance to think, to watch, to linger. A night like this was a portrait painted in stillness and serenity, breathing with the quiet rhythm of darkness itself.

And only the moon, dressed in its starry pajamas, watched the wind’s wanderings. It watched as one would a sleepless soul moving through a world woven of shadows—watched with quiet admiration for its calm curiosity, its cool grace, its unhurried ease. The moon knew this was the wind’s rest before dawn, before it would return to the sea and, joining forces with her, begin to roar and spin and dance and wail. The sea would answer with foaming waves, striking the shore, gifting her treasures dredged from the deep—shells, seaweed, smooth pebbles. Gifts of beauty, born of her depths, belonging only to her.

The moon watched this nocturnal idyll. Its eyes grew heavy with peace. The darkness stroked it tenderly; the sea sang its lullaby in soft tides. And slowly, gently, the moon closed its eyes—and met the sun rising far away, beyond the horizon of the sea.