Looking up at the sky, I could make out Orion, sparkling
dimly against a brightly lit horizon. As I stood on a little pier, the moist sea breeze brushing my face, I could hear the water lapping against the shore. And off in the
distance, I could see large ships and the bright headlights of cars that
occasionally turned and cast a beam like a searchlight in a wide arc across the
cove. Yet with all the distance that the light travelled, the sound of the cars
was muted and I was surrounded by the peaceful sound of bubbles that rose to
the surface of the water and burst, creating ripples that grew out gently and
then faded into the shadows. At the end of the pier below the wooden paneling
hung a green light whose eerie glow slowly attracted a swirling cloud of what
appeared to be tiny minnows. When they had been scooped up with a net and
dumped on the dock, however, they were found to be little worms whose rapid
wriggling had created the illusion of fish darting left and right. And as I
stood on the pier overlooking the Chesapeake, I wondered if the green light
made so famous in The Great Gatsby had had that same effect – attracting things
that were not as they initially appeared from a distance, things that were
masked by a seeming calm and pervading sleepiness.
