Photo: Wayne Keller.

The whole thing unfolded while I was watching a movie late that night at my place on Roberts Road. As the movie began, a large black bear lumbered up the driveway toward the house, triggering the driveway motion sensor light. I was seated beside the bow window in the living room, so when the light snapped on, it pulled me straight out of the film.

A bear is not a rare sight, but one that resets the mind to the reality of where we live.

Later, as the movie wrapped up, the barn light flared on.

I looked over to see what had set it off, and that's when the moose's shadow crept eerily into view from right to left, hauntingly ghostlike. I leaned toward the corner of the window for a better look, and all I saw were tall, backlit legs, statuesque and unmistakable.

The camera video shows motion, but the freeze-frames distill the drama.

And after a long pause, the moose stepped forward into view, unhurried, deliberate. Then it turned its gaze back toward the house. Not startled. Just curious. Like it was taking in the strange geometry of the artificially lit-up night, and the quiet figure watching from behind the glass.

Reset complete.

Photo: Wayne Keller.