Rick

A visit by Rick many years ago during the pandemic

In the busy, bustling city where I grew up, our days were marked by melodious calls to prayer, five times a day, that drew our attention to the position of the sun in the sky. There was one before sunrise, one when the sun reached its highest point, another in the late afternoon, one just after sunset and the final prayer after twilight. Each had a specific Arabic name. 

It was a longstanding superstition that the prayer after sunset, Maghrib, had to be observed with the utmost strictness. Children should not be outside at that hour, our older aunts warned us, because jinn roamed the streets and might carry us away. Looking back, it seems like one of those old wives’ tales born from practical necessity, a clever way to make sure every child came indoors as darkness fell. But we learned to fear that time of day, often running inside and staying close to the adults in the house.

Perhaps it is because of that conditioning, combined with my quietly rebellious nature, that I make a point of going outside at sunset when the summer days are long and darkness does not arrive quite so early. I sit and listen as the world around me grows quieter. The birds might suddenly erupt into song before settling in for the night. The traffic on the freeway, barely noticeable during the day, becomes a distant, soothing hum.

One evening, I lingered outside longer than usual, watching the darkness slowly settle over the sky and waiting for my cat to return from the alley. Suddenly, I saw him running up the steps into my backyard. But as he came closer, I realized it wasn’t my cat at all. It was another creature, dark and much fatter, but nearly the same height.

He stopped mid-step and seemed to smile lazily at me as if to say, “Ah, you’re Anjum. I’ve heard so much about you!”

After my initial gasp, we stared at each other. I marveled at how beautiful he was, with his long tail, sleek nose and perfect light markings. It dawned on me that I might never again find myself this close to a raccoon, so I needed to make the most of the moment.

I remembered another night when my son had gone outside to bring our cat in. He had recently been looking through his old Pokémon card collection, so perhaps that was still on his mind when Peter the Opossum lumbered up the sidewalk with his wonderfully wobbly gait. “I think we have just been visited by a mythical beast!” he exclaimed loudly to his girlfriend on the phone.

Late evenings are magical because this is when nature’s night shift comes alive. I love imagining all these creatures tucked into holes and burrows, sleeping while we go about our day. At night, while we are fast asleep, they emerge to explore our garbage cans, sewers and whatever abandoned treasures they might find.

Perhaps the darkness does not obscure our world at all but reveals more than we have the capacity to see.