< fiction > Night people.

A cold hand reached up and gently pressed the small, circular lamp. A dim haze of chilled, sterile light bloomed out from the disc and the hand dropped once more. Chim sat up slowly, a nagging urge to rub his face spread across his brain, but he knew to ignore it. He knew that it would be pointless. Long stretches between periods of sleep always made his arms, head and face constantly itchy. He would ignore it again for as long as he could. He stood up, wrapped the bedsheet around his shoulders and padded over towards the window. He waved his hand, half-heartedly, in the general direction of  the vid screen and it hummed immediately to half-life. A dull blue faded across the cabin and with it the voices of various pundits and opinioneers. Someone shot at someone else, somebody different got upset. Same old, same old.

Chim dragged his feet over towards the table, pulled out a chair and dragged it towards the window. By now the voices from the screen had become unintelligible static. Background noise that was easy to ignore. Chim liked it that way. He looked upwards and his eyes found a moon. He stared. Days seemed to pass while he watched the rock and the rock watched him back.

From the cabin he could see forever. He was surrounded by it. It stretched off into the distance in every direction. At least when you were on a planet there was a sky. You could look up and be drawn into the colours. Here there was black, and that was all. Here out in the middle of occupied nowhere there was nothing but black. Stars and moons and other assorted rocks gave brief respite, and every so often an array of clouds would commandeer the windows, spraying colour into the room beyond making Chim think it had been worth it to get here after all. Much like the colours that feeling didn't usually last very long.

At first the darkness had been interesting. Exciting, even. But now it seemed to be just miles and miles and miles of nothing. Darkness used to be comfortable. A sign of night and of peace and quiet. Time for creativity and for secrets. The night had once been his friend and his partner in crime. Now though, night was all that there ever was and it was no longer Chim's friend. Night people don't stay night people in space.

They just become people.

The chair groaned as it grew accustomed to the weight upon it's back legs. The dry-heater clicked on and almost instantly the cabin seemed to warm. At least it would not be a cold night as well as a sleepless one.