I stepped out of the warm light and started on my long walk home.
The city was still moist after the light drizzle of the evening. Now as night stilled the constant traffic and hushed the hue and cry of the people, I found myself strolling through a place very different to the one I had grown accustomed to.
The wet stones of the street, glistening in the light of the halogens overhead, seemed to possess an almost ethereal beauty. The faint cool breeze that blew in from the river felt like the return of someone sorely missed, causing my heart to rejoice at the reunion.
Occasionally a tramp would pass by, or a vehicle splashing through the rare puddles by the roadside. These, disturbances of the tranquil atmosphere, temporarily broke my trance and I blushed on being made to realize my pensive mood. When these random occurrences had passed me by however, I soon resumed my solitary musings.
I walked on. I had a long way to go to reach home.
I saw the monstrous visages of the finally emptied office buildings. I saw them in a new light… the light of darkness and disuse. Where just a few hours ago they had been bustling with the activities of a thousand harried souls, they were now at peace, they were now abandoned. Shut down for the night, closed till they would be opened again for the occupation of the people who worked in them.
It suited the scene of the city lulled to sleep perfectly.
The buses and taxis that throughout the day had ferried people around were parked by the pavement. The only sound emerging from them was that of profound silence. Somehow this seemed louder, more deafening, than the noises they made while in use. It seemed to drown out the voices of the rest of the world. Their horns no longer honked and their tires no longer screeched. Their drivers no longer yelled at the passing pedestrians or his compatriots in other cars. Everyone had gone home to rest, to regain the energy for another exhausting day. The vehicle remained. Like a silent monument to what the day was sure to bring back to the city.
A promise, that this majestic peace of the night, of the dark, would be shattered again.
I stepped off the pavement and walked on along the dark road. People… entire families were asleep there. They had all spent their day toiling in the vicinity. Attending to the small stalls or doing some form of hard physical labor so as to obtain the money to feed their hungry children. Their entire day, since the time of their birth, was a long continuous struggle. They were always one step, one very small step, away from starvation, from disease… from death, the eternal rest.
Here under the dark shadow of night even they were granted a moment of peace from their never ending war… the war to stay alive. It was a losing battle… a battle against overwhelming odds, against the world. This brief truce was the only thing that they possessed, that gave them the power to carry on.
I walked on. I walked through the dark and the damp. I walked past un-familiar things that had been so familiar mere hours ago. Now they were all alien. I felt as if I were a stranger, a stranger in my own city. I walked through the golden rings of light cast by the street lamps overhead, and also the black shadows they cast. I glanced into the dark alleys I passed, and down the streets that I crossed. Everywhere I was met with the same eerie sense of stillness and respite.
I walked along a street that had been featuring in my thoughts for quite a while lately. I kept my eyes on the ground. I couldn’t lift my head to glance around me, at the buildings that seemed to loom over me… stifling my thoughts. I was afraid that in this nocturnal scenario… even they would perhaps seem new and unknown... I was scared of admitting the faint ridiculous longing in my heart.
I heard footsteps approaching. I looked up sharply to see a vaguely familiar figure coming towards me from the darkness that lay on the road ahead. I held my breath, my heart pounding against my ribs. I felt the grip of a sensation more consuming than the deepest fear or wildest joy… a hope flaring like a light in the darkness of my mind. The figure passed under a streetlight and I sighed with disappointment. Another tramp like me returning home with hurried steps…
I laughed inwardly and without humor at the mad and senseless wistfulness that had blazed in me for a moment. I sank back into the melancholy mood that had been my only companion of the night.
I walked on towards my home. My musings and fantasizing had brought me quite a long way. I wasn’t too far away from my destination anymore.
The surroundings were familiar again, even in this unusual hour. I discovered I was somewhat disappointed that I was nearing the culmination of my sojourn. I realized I had relished my journey so much, that now, by comparison, even the thought being safely ensconced in my own abode seemed less appealing.
I finally reached my doorstep. All the lights were turned off. I reached out to switch on the light of the porch but for some inexplicable reason stopped myself.
It seemed… almost sacrilegious to disturb the dark. I unlocked my door, fumbling with the keys in the shadow, and stepped inside into the familiar, overpowering, constricting, gloom of my house. I shut the door behind me with hardly a noise…
I woke from my reverie with a start. I had not been paying attention to the discussion that had been raging all around me. Nearly all of my friends had left. My host and I were alone now. I got up from where I had been sitting by the window and bade him a good night. He accompanied me to the door.
I stepped out of the warm light and started on my long walk home…
