It was a quiet night. I was relaxing on the front porch.
I always enjoyed the peacefulness of my property, barely noticing the neighbors in the distance. It was golden hour, so the sun was about to retire, and left its orange and yellow tails alongside the shadows.
My rocking chair kept a little squeak in its left rail to break up the silence. The evening wasn’t too cool and wasn’t too hot, so my lightweight outfit was just right. As the golden light was receding, I watched calmly the retreat. I was lulled by the rhythm of the squeak and the crickets, orchestrating a tune together.
A whimper threw off the lullaby, suddenly.
I stopped rocking to listen.
Nothing.
After several minutes, I chalked it up to hearing things. It had to have been a small animal, temporarily stuck. I went back to rocking and enjoying the slowly creeping night. Fireflies became visible all around, tree toads argued dutifully, and small wings fluttered as the bats raced for breakfast. I closed my eyes to consume it all, and the whimper came again. I sat forward this time, to pivot my head to point my ears in a better direction, to figure out where the sound was coming from. As I moved forward more the chair squeaked again and I heard the whimper again.
It was close by.
Possibly under the porch. I shifted again to see if I could make out something through the cracks, but the fading light was already oppressed below. It was silent. Everything had paused, it seemed. Just to let me listen. But I could not hear anything.
Ten minutes passed and I sat back in the chair, stirring up a squeak without whimper responding after. I was motionless for a while, eye-balling the cracks in the porch floor. It was getting cooler out now, with the sun fully tucked away behind the horizon. Yet, I didn’t want to head inside yet, just in case… in case of what? I did not know yet.
Another twenty minutes passed, and I decided my mind was tired and was just playing games. I pushed out a sigh and stabilized myself with the chair arms. Ready to push myself up, when the whimper came again, this time by itself with no encouragement from a preceding squeak. I pushed up quickly and rushed from the porch to the side of the porch, where I suspected the sound was coming from.
I couldn’t see anything, it was dark now. So, I listened intently. Waiting for any sound to echo out from beneath there.
The whimper came from a different location the left this time.
I spun fast to look where I heard the noise. There were bushes on either side of the barn that I looked to first. Then I headed for the barn. When I reach it, I slid open the large door and rushed to turn the lights on. Everything glowed inside and cast light to the surrounding area outside. Then I froze to listen. Nothing. No sound. The world around me came back to life: crickets, toads, bats. All resuming their routine. I walked through the barn to the opposite side, where my work bench was and grabbed a large LED lantern. In a kind of figure eight pattern, I inspected the outside of the barn, starting on one side then back in the barn and back outside to check the other side.
Nothing. No whimper.
What I heard was no dog whimper, or child whimper, or even small animal whimper. It wasn’t cat, or a bird, or a bat, or cricket, or toad.
Up until now, it was just this sound I was hearing, but I saw eyes.
In the bush outside the barn, I saw eyes. Thin eyes that glowed in the light from my flashlight. I approached cautiously, keeping the eyes aglow.
The bush was inches from me now and the whimper returned, this time not from a place of distress, but a harmonic set of notes, a song that was actually soothing. No longer was I concerned for the well-being of the being emitting it and was concerned for being able to consume the sound.
The eyes closed and I couldn’t see anything there anymore, but the song continued. It hypnotized me. Time seemed to pass by slower.
The light around me returned.
It was morning. I had been in a trance, and the sunlight started to paint the landscape around me. The warmth settled on my clothing and, in turn, warmed me. Yet, the feeling I had from before lingered. The feeling of peacefulness and calmness rolling through my body. The feeling of not wanting to lose that feeling. But it was fading.
I started to feel a sense of panic and began searching for the being, the thing from the bushes. It wasn’t there though, so I rushed to search the other bushes. There was no sight of it. I searched the porch, from above and below. I spent the entire morning looking everywhere I could think of.
There was no trace of the whimpering being.
It was gone.
And so was that enigmatic feeling.