I've always found Urbania to be beautiful in the nighttime and she is at her most beautiful in the late hours when the streets are almost empty of people and all that remains are the shadows of the day, lingering on street corners and dark alley ways, celebrating the darkness. The uncollected trash wakes and sort of moves with the play of neon lights and lampposts. Everything seems to be in a stasis, in a sombre and dreamlike wakefulness that puts you to sleep. Dark and resplendent. Urbania.
When I went outside, Urbania greets me with a cold whiff of the coal smoke from the chimneys that keep the city warm in these areas. Urbania breathes and hums in a quiet cadence. I can feel it under my feet. I can hear it between my ears. She is between sleep and wakefulness.
The cold is inviting, so I walk. And walked. While walking, I tried to close my eyes. Trying to pretend that I was blind, I follow the blind footpath laid in the sidewalks, feeling it with my shoe-clad feet. Unsuccessful at my attempts to be blind, I open my eyes to find an old man on a tall bicycle looking at me while he was passing by. He had that look that kind of says that he wanted to know more about me. We matched gazes for a second or two. And in those two seconds, we acknowledged each other's presence, becoming friends, brothers, father and son, forming a bond that nobody could break. For two seconds we recognized and celebrated each other's tangent spaces. Two seconds. Then he was gone. He and I, like the remnants of the humanity that populated these streets in daylight are brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers occupying the spaces where the darkness and the somber neon light meet. Creatures of the night.
I couldn't sleep last night, so I decided to follow my shadow. I walked and walked the streets and thought about the day's accomplishments, which mostly was sitting in front of my computer the whole day trying to beat a looming deadline. Things have been really hard for me lately. Good hard, but still hard nonetheless. But I am hopeful because I could always hope.
When I went outside, Urbania greets me with a cold whiff of the coal smoke from the chimneys that keep the city warm in these areas. Urbania breathes and hums in a quiet cadence. I can feel it under my feet. I can hear it between my ears. She is between sleep and wakefulness.
The cold is inviting, so I walk. And walked. While walking, I tried to close my eyes. Trying to pretend that I was blind, I follow the blind footpath laid in the sidewalks, feeling it with my shoe-clad feet. Unsuccessful at my attempts to be blind, I open my eyes to find an old man on a tall bicycle looking at me while he was passing by. He had that look that kind of says that he wanted to know more about me. We matched gazes for a second or two. And in those two seconds, we acknowledged each other's presence, becoming friends, brothers, father and son, forming a bond that nobody could break. For two seconds we recognized and celebrated each other's tangent spaces. Two seconds. Then he was gone. He and I, like the remnants of the humanity that populated these streets in daylight are brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers occupying the spaces where the darkness and the somber neon light meet. Creatures of the night.
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