Speaker 1: Arriving. The door closes behind me with a small click,
Speaker 1: and I stand for a moment on the step. The
Speaker 1: evening is settled into that soft blue gray that comes
Speaker 1: just after the sun goes down, when the air is
Speaker 1: neither warm nor cool, but somewhere in between, holding the
Speaker 1: memory of the day that passed. I am not sure
Speaker 1: where I am going. I am simply going. The street
Speaker 1: is quiet, not empty. There is still light in some windows,
Speaker 1: Still the faint sound of a television from inside one
Speaker 1: of the houses. Still the occasional car passing at the
Speaker 1: end of the block. But quiet in the way that matters,
Speaker 1: the kind of quiet that lets you hear your own footsteps,
Speaker 1: the rhythm of them, the soft tap of my shoes
Speaker 1: against the pavement. I take the first step down the path.
Speaker 1: The grass on either side is still damp from earlier
Speaker 1: will I did not see the weather turn. Perhaps it
Speaker 1: came and went while I was inside, while I was
Speaker 1: making tea, while I was standing at the kitchen window,
Speaker 1: watching the light change on the wall. It is that
Speaker 1: kind of evening, the kind that slips past without announcement.
Speaker 1: The gate is iron, old, painted green once but now
Speaker 1: mostly rust, and the traces of paint that cling stubbornly
Speaker 1: to the curves. It swings open with a familiar groan,
Speaker 1: and I step through iron On the street ahead of me,
Speaker 1: the lamp at the corner is just beginning to glow.
Speaker 1: It is the first one. I watch as the filament warms,
Speaker 1: as the yellow light pushes out against the dusk, as
Speaker 1: it claims its small circle of the sidewalk. I do
Speaker 1: not hurry. There is nowhere I need to be the
Speaker 1: first lamps. I walk slowly, and the lamps come on
Speaker 1: one by one as I pass. This is the way
Speaker 1: of this street, the way it has always been, though
Speaker 1: I cannot say how I know this. Perhaps I have
Speaker 1: walked it before, in some other evening, in some other life.
Speaker 1: Perhaps I am simply noticing now what I have always
Speaker 1: failed to see. The first lamp is a yellow orange,
Speaker 1: warm against the fading blue of the sky. The next one,
Speaker 1: half a block down, flickers once before settling into its glow.
Speaker 1: The third is steady from the start, as if it
Speaker 1: has been waiting for me, as if it knew I
Speaker 1: would come this way. I stop beneath the third lamp
Speaker 1: and look up. The light is brighter than I expected,
Speaker 1: a small sun in a cage of glass and metal,
Speaker 1: and it makes the leaves of the tree above me
Speaker 1: glow a deep, rich green. There is a moth circling
Speaker 1: the fixture, small and pale, drawn to the warmth. I
Speaker 1: watch it for a moment, its path erratic and purposeful,
Speaker 1: all at once, and then I move on ahead. The
Speaker 1: houses line the street in their quiet rows. Some have
Speaker 1: lights in the windows, already soft squares of yellow cutting
Speaker 1: through the shutters. Others are dark, curtains drawn, their doors
Speaker 1: closed against the evening. I do not know who lives
Speaker 1: in them. I do not need to know. I am
Speaker 1: only walking. A woman passes me on the opposite side
Speaker 1: of the street. She is carrying a plastic bag, and
Speaker 1: she nods as she goes by, a small gesture the
Speaker 1: kind that neighbors make. I nod back. Though I do
Speaker 1: not know her name, the street knows us both, and
Speaker 1: that is enough. The baker's shop. The baker's shop is
Speaker 1: still open, just barely. Through the window, I can see
Speaker 1: the baker wiping down the counter, his movements slow and deliberate,
Speaker 1: the way of someone who has done the same task
Speaker 1: every night for years. The display cases are nearly empty, now,
Speaker 1: just a few loaves left on the shelves, their tops
Speaker 1: golden and cracked. I stop outside the window and the
Speaker 1: smell reaches me. It is the smell of bread, of course,
Speaker 1: but more than that, it is the smell of flower
Speaker 1: and heat and yeast, the smell of something being made,
Speaker 1: something being finished. It is warm and earthy, and it
Speaker 1: makes me think for a moment of mornings I have forgotten,
Speaker 1: of kitchens I have left behind. The baker does not
Speaker 1: see me. He is focused on his work on the counter,
Speaker 1: on the rag in his hands. The shop behind him
Speaker 1: is neat and quiet, the shelves already bear in places,
Speaker 1: the floor swept clean. There is a small clock on
Speaker 1: the wall above the register, its face yellowed with age,
Speaker 1: and I watch the second hand move. It is almost
Speaker 1: closing time, almost the end of the day for him.
Speaker 1: I press my hand against the glass, just for a moment.
Speaker 1: It is cool and smooth, and through it I can
Speaker 1: feel the faint warmth of the ovens that are still
Speaker 1: running at the back, still doing their work, still turning
Speaker 1: dough into bread. Then I step back and I let
Speaker 1: the shop be. The door is propped open with a
Speaker 1: small stone, and a dog lies on the step. A
Speaker 1: terrier of some kind, brown and white and old. It
Speaker 1: does not look up as I pass. It is seen
Speaker 1: enough of the world to know that a passing stranger
Speaker 1: is not worth the effort of attention the postman. Few
Speaker 1: blocks on I meet the postman. He is walking his
Speaker 1: round still, though the evening is late, the most of
Speaker 1: the houses have already received their mail. He carries a
Speaker 1: bag over his shoulder, heavy with the last of the letters,
Speaker 1: the last of the bills and postcards and envelopes that
Speaker 1: someone somewhere thought important enough to send. He nods at
Speaker 1: me as we pass. I nod backed. We do not speak.
Speaker 1: There is nothing to say. He has his work, and
Speaker 1: I have mine, though mine is only walking, only being
Speaker 1: here in the fading light. His uniform is blue, the
Speaker 1: color of the sky just before it turns tonight, and
Speaker 1: his cap sits low on his forehead. He is young,
Speaker 1: perhaps twenty five five, perhaps less, with the kind of
Speaker 1: face that is not yet learned to show exhaustion. He
Speaker 1: walks with purpose, each step measured, and he stops at
Speaker 1: each mailbox, each door, each gate. I watch him for
Speaker 1: a moment. As I go by. He slides a letter
Speaker 1: into a slot, then moves on the motion is practiced automatic,
Speaker 1: the kind of motion that comes from doing the same
Speaker 1: thing every day, in fair weather and foul, in heat
Speaker 1: and cold. There is a kind of peace in that,
Speaker 1: I think, a kind of stillness in the repetition a head.
Speaker 1: A child runs across the street chasing a ball. The
Speaker 1: postman pauses, waits, holds up a hand. The car that
Speaker 1: is approaching. The car slows, stops, waits. The child retrieves
Speaker 1: the ball and runs back to the sidewalk. The posseman
Speaker 1: waves the car on, it moves. Everything is ordinary, Everything
Speaker 1: is as it should be. The old car with the
Speaker 1: headlight out there, his car parked at the curb three
Speaker 1: houses down from where the street narrows. One headlight is out,
Speaker 1: the other glows amber in the dusk, throwing a pale
Speaker 1: circle onto the pavement that reaches almost to the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: I stop. I don't know why. There is nothing urgent
Speaker 1: about a head light out, nothing that demands attention, And
Speaker 1: yet I stand there for a moment with my hands
Speaker 1: in my pockets, looking at the car the way one
Speaker 1: looks at a face that holds a familiar expression. It
Speaker 1: is an old car, blue, or something that was once
Speaker 1: blue before the years softened it to gray. The chrome
Speaker 1: around the windshield is pitted with rust. A sticker in
Speaker 1: the rear window says something I cannot read from this distance,
Speaker 1: some fate announcement of a place, or a team, or
Speaker 1: a belief. The passenger seat holds a pair of folded newspapers.
Speaker 1: The dashboard is dark. I walk on, and a few
Speaker 1: minutes later I hear an engine turn over behind me.
Speaker 1: I do not turn around. I let the sound come
Speaker 1: to me, the rough idole at first, then the steady
Speaker 1: purr as it warms, Then the tires moving over the
Speaker 1: asphalt as it pulls away from the curb. The exhaust
Speaker 1: reaches me a moment later, the faint, sweet smell of
Speaker 1: gasoline and heat, and I breathe it in the way
Speaker 1: one breathes, and the smell of bread from an open window.
Speaker 1: It is the smell of a machine that is alive
Speaker 1: for now, that is going somewhere. I hear the car
Speaker 1: pass me on my left. I glance and see the
Speaker 1: single head light sweeping the road ahead. The other side dark,
Speaker 1: and for a moment the street looks lopsided, unbalanced, as
Speaker 1: though the night itself has a blind spot. Then the
Speaker 1: car is ahead of me, climbing the slight hill toward
Speaker 1: the corner, and the headlight sweeps across the facades of
Speaker 1: the houses on the right, catching a window, here, a
Speaker 1: fence post, there, a bush that flares briefly into bright
Speaker 1: green before the light moves on at the corner. The
Speaker 1: car turns right and the sound of it fades. The
Speaker 1: street is quieter now, the houses settle back into their
Speaker 1: evening shapes. A daub barks somewhere far off. Two sharp founds,
Speaker 1: and then nothing. The air is cool on my face,
Speaker 1: and I realize I had been walking faster than I
Speaker 1: meant to, driven by a small engine of my own,
Speaker 1: and I slow down again. The street continues, the sidewalk continues.
Speaker 1: I continue the pharmacy on the corner. The pharmacy is
Speaker 1: on the corner. It's green cross, glowing softly in the
Speaker 1: evening light. It is a small building, white walls and
Speaker 1: a blue wanning, and through the window I can see
Speaker 1: the shelves lined with boxes and bottles, the counter where
Speaker 1: the pharmacist stands, the old man who always seems to
Speaker 1: be there. I cross the street to get a better look.
Speaker 1: The cross is electric, a quiet green that does not flicker,
Speaker 1: and it casts a faint glow on the sidewalk below.
Speaker 1: Inside the lights are bright, clinical, the kind of light
Speaker 1: that makes everything look clean and ordered. A woman is
Speaker 1: standing at the counter speaking to the pharmacist, her voice
Speaker 1: too low for me to hear. The window display is simple,
Speaker 1: a row of cough syrups, a stack of vitamins, a
Speaker 1: small basket of bandages. There is nothing fancy here now,
Speaker 1: not that catches the eye, just the ordinary things that
Speaker 1: people need, the small remedies for the small aches of living.
Speaker 1: I stand for a moment watching The pharmacist reaches for
Speaker 1: a bottle, fills a small bag, hands it across the counter.
Speaker 1: The woman takes it, pays thanks him, leaves. The door
Speaker 1: chimes as it opens and closes. The pharmacist returns to
Speaker 1: his spot behind the counter, to his book, to his waiting.
Speaker 1: There is a bench across the street, iron and wood,
Speaker 1: and I sit on it for a moment. The seat
Speaker 1: is cool, slightly damped from the earlier weather, and I
Speaker 1: can feel the moisture through my trousers. I do not mind.
Speaker 1: I am not in a hurry. The evening is still young,
Speaker 1: still soft, still holding the day in its gentle grip
Speaker 1: the old couple on a bench. Further along, where the
Speaker 1: street widens and the trees grow taller, there is a
Speaker 1: small park. It is nothing much, a rectangle of grass,
Speaker 1: a few benches, a rusted swing set, but it is enough.
Speaker 1: It is a place to stop, a place to sit,
Speaker 1: a place to watch the world go by. On the
Speaker 1: nearest bench, an old couple sits together. They are holding hands,
Speaker 1: their fingers interlaced, and they are looking out at the
Speaker 1: empty grass ahead of them. The woman has white hair
Speaker 1: pulled back in a bun, and he wears a cardigan
Speaker 1: despite the warmth. The man wears a hat, a fedora
Speaker 1: of some kind, and his hands are resting on his knees.
Speaker 1: I do not interrupt them. I walk past, slowly, quietly,
Speaker 1: the way one walks past something sacred. They do not
Speaker 1: look at me. They are lost in their own world,
Speaker 1: their own silence, their own long years together. There is
Speaker 1: a kind of communication in their stillness, a conversation that
Speaker 1: does not need words. I think of my own life,
Speaker 1: of the people I have loved, of the quiet moments
Speaker 1: I have shared with them. I think of hands held
Speaker 1: across tables, of shoulders touching on couches of the small
Speaker 1: intimacies that build a life. I do not feel lonely.
Speaker 1: I feel somehow accompanied. The street is full of these
Speaker 1: small portraits, these glimpses of lives being lived. The woman
Speaker 1: says something to the man. He laughs, a soft sound
Speaker 1: that carries across the grass. Then they are quiet again,
Speaker 1: and they watch the light change on the leaves of
Speaker 1: the oak tree above them. I keep walking the library.
Speaker 1: The library is closed now, but I stop at the
Speaker 1: window anyway. The building is old, stone faced, with tall
Speaker 1: windows that reflect the evening sky. Inside, the shelves are dark,
Speaker 1: the chairs empty, the circulation desk unattended. But through the
Speaker 1: glass I can still see the titles on the spines,
Speaker 1: still imagine the worlds they contain. There is a display
Speaker 1: near the entrance, new arrivals perhaps, or seasonal favorites. I
Speaker 1: press my face closer to the glass and read the spines.
Speaker 1: A novel red and gold, a book of poems, glue
Speaker 1: and worn, a history of something I do not recognize.
Speaker 1: A children's book, bright and illustrated, with a picture of
Speaker 1: a rabbit on the cover. I remember being young, being
Speaker 1: small enough to sit on the floor of a library
Speaker 1: and pull books from the lower shelves to open them
Speaker 1: and find worlds I had never imagined. I remember the
Speaker 1: smell of old pages, of dust and glue and time.
Speaker 1: I remember the feeling of being lost in a story,
Speaker 1: of forgetting where I was, of becoming some one else.
Speaker 1: The library door is locked, but the window is clean,
Speaker 1: and through it the evening light falls in long rectangles
Speaker 1: across the floor. I imagine the librarians, the quiet shushing
Speaker 1: of their footsteps, the stamps they press into cards, the
Speaker 1: small transactions of borrowing and returning. I imagine the readers,
Speaker 1: the students, the dreamers who come here to find what
Speaker 1: they need. I step back from the window. The street
Speaker 1: is quiet around me, the lamps now fully lit, the
Speaker 1: sky above deepening to purple. I keep walking the bus stop.
Speaker 1: There is a bus stop on the corner, a simple
Speaker 1: shelter with a bench and a schedule posted on the wall.
Speaker 1: I sit down on the bench and rest my feet.
Speaker 1: The seat is wooden, slightly rough, worn smooth by the
Speaker 1: years by the many people who have sat here waiting
Speaker 1: for a ride that is always coming, always almost there.
Speaker 1: The schedule is faded, the times difficult to read in
Speaker 1: the dim light. I do not need to read it.
Speaker 1: I am not waiting for a bus. I am simply sitting,
Speaker 1: simply resting, simply being here in the quiet of the evening.
Speaker 1: Across the street, a cat moves along the wall of
Speaker 1: a house, its shaped thin and dark against the white paint.
Speaker 1: It stops, looks at me, then continues on its way.
Speaker 1: It has somewhere to be, something to do. I wonder
Speaker 1: what it is looking for, what kind of night creature
Speaker 1: it is. A car passes, its head lights briefly illuminating
Speaker 1: the shelter, the bench, my hands resting on my knees.
Speaker 1: The driver does not slow. The car disappears around the corner,
Speaker 1: its engine fading into the distance. The silence returns. I
Speaker 1: think about the people who wait here, day after day,
Speaker 1: in fair weather and foul. I think about the journeys
Speaker 1: they are taking, the destinations they are reaching, the lives
Speaker 1: they are living. I think about the buses that come
Speaker 1: and go, the routes that circle the town, the connections
Speaker 1: that bind one place to another. After a while, I stand.
Speaker 1: My legs are rested, now, my body ready to move again.
Speaker 1: I leave the shelter and continue down the street, and
Speaker 1: behind me the bus stop waits, patient and still, A
Speaker 1: little wind. The wind comes up just as I reach
Speaker 1: the square. It is not much, just a gentle movement
Speaker 1: of air that brushes against my face and moves the
Speaker 1: leaves on the trees. It carries with it the smell
Speaker 1: of the evening, dust and stone and something green, something growing.
Speaker 1: I stop and let it pass over me. The wind
Speaker 1: is cool, not cold, and it feels good against my
Speaker 1: skin after the warmth of the day. I close my
Speaker 1: eyes for a moment and listen to it. It moves
Speaker 1: through the branches, it mustles the papers in the gutter.
Speaker 1: It carries the distant sound of someone closing a door.
Speaker 1: When I open my eyes, I see that the wind
Speaker 1: has stirred the curtains in an upstairs window. They are
Speaker 1: moving gently, waving in and out like hands waving goodbye.
Speaker 1: The window is dark, the room behind it empty, but
Speaker 1: the curtains are alive, are dancing, are keeping their own
Speaker 1: quiet company with the evening. I walk on. The wind
Speaker 1: follows for a while, then fades, then is gone. The
Speaker 1: air settles back into stillness, into that particular hush that
Speaker 1: comes just after a breeze has passed. The trees are still, now,
Speaker 1: their leaves holding the memory of movement, their branches swaying
Speaker 1: gently with the fading force. Ahead, a man is walking
Speaker 1: toward me. He is wearing a coat despite the warmth,
Speaker 1: and he is carrying a newspaper folded under his arm.
Speaker 1: He nods as we pass, a small greeting, the kind
Speaker 1: that strangers offer in small towns. I nod back. The
Speaker 1: street accepts us both the flower shop window. The flower
Speaker 1: shop is closed, but the window is still lit, still
Speaker 1: displaying the day's remaining blooms. I stop in front of
Speaker 1: it and look. There are roses, white and red and pink,
Speaker 1: their petals still tight, their stems still fresh. There are lilies,
Speaker 1: tall and pale, their smell faint but detectable through the glass.
Speaker 1: There are daisies, simple and bright, mixed in with greenery
Speaker 1: that I cannot name. The shop is dark behind the window,
Speaker 1: the register empty, the door lock, but the flowers remain,
Speaker 1: remain visible, remain the lovely in their quiet way. Some
Speaker 1: one arranged them this morning. Some one trimmed their stems
Speaker 1: and filled their buckets. Someone tended to them with care.
Speaker 1: Now they wait for the morning, for the customers who
Speaker 1: will come, for the bouquets that will be made. I
Speaker 1: think about the florist, the person who works here, who
Speaker 1: wakes early and tends to these delicate things. I think
Speaker 1: about the smell of the shop, the coolness of the air,
Speaker 1: the soft sound of water and buckets. I think about
Speaker 1: the people who buy flowers, the acay Asians that call
Speaker 1: for them berths and deaths, and weddings and apologies, the
Speaker 1: small ceremonies of life that we mark with color and scent.
Speaker 1: The window is clean, almost invisible, and through it the
Speaker 1: flowers seem to glow. The light inside the shop is soft,
Speaker 1: designed to show them at their best, and it does.
Speaker 1: They look peaceful, resting, waiting. I press my hand against
Speaker 1: the glass one more time, feel a coolness of it,
Speaker 1: then move on the calf with the light still on.
Speaker 1: There is a calf at the end of the block,
Speaker 1: and its light is still on. Through the window, I
Speaker 1: can see the tables, the chairs, the counter where the
Speaker 1: espresso machine sits, silent and clean. One table is occupied,
Speaker 1: a man reading a book, his face lit by the
Speaker 1: lamp above him, his coffee cup half empty beside him.
Speaker 1: I stand outside and watch. He does not see me.
Speaker 1: I was actually a past beginning. I had a clear
Speaker 1: ceased which was my cast for the age that A
Speaker 1: plain so much. I'm working that I was an important duck.
Speaker 1: I stand outside and watch. He does not see me.
Speaker 1: He is absorbed in his reading, his eyes moving across
Speaker 1: the page, his hand occasionally reaching for the cup. He
Speaker 1: turns a page, he takes a sip. He continues. The
Speaker 1: scene is ordinary, unremarkable, the kind of scene that happens
Speaker 1: in a thousand and calfs in a thousand towns. Inside
Speaker 1: the calf is warm, inviting. The walls are lined with
Speaker 1: shelves of cups and mugs, some for sale, some for display.
Speaker 1: There are paintings on the walls, small canvases of street
Speaker 1: scenes and still lifes, the work of local artists. Perhaps
Speaker 1: there is a chalkboard menu, the day's offerings, written in
Speaker 1: careful script. I think about going in. I think about
Speaker 1: ordering a tea, sitting at a table, watching the evening settle,
Speaker 1: But I do not move. I am content to stand here,
Speaker 1: to watch the man read, to imagine the taste of
Speaker 1: the coffee he is. Sometimes it is enough just to observe,
Speaker 1: just to let the world happen without being part of it.
Speaker 1: The man looks up, glances out the window, sees me
Speaker 1: standing there. He does not wave, he does not frown.
Speaker 1: He simply looks, then returns to his book. The calf
Speaker 1: is a world unto itself, and I am outside it
Speaker 1: looking in. She walks with a cane, or perhaps it
Speaker 1: is a walking stick. The distinction is hard to make
Speaker 1: from behind, and it doesn't matter. What matters is the
Speaker 1: rhythm of her steps, the slow and deliberate cadence of
Speaker 1: someone who has learned to take her time, not quicken
Speaker 1: my pace to catch her. I do not slow to
Speaker 1: let her pull ahead. I simply walk and she walks,
Speaker 1: and for a block or more we share the sidewalk,
Speaker 1: the way two strangers sometimes do, neither speaking, both moving
Speaker 1: in the same direction at the same speed, as though
Speaker 1: we have agreed on something without discussing it. Her coat
Speaker 1: is dark, her shoes are black. There's a small bag
Speaker 1: hanging from her arm, the kind with a clasp that
Speaker 1: clicks when it opens. I cannot see what is inside.
Speaker 1: I don't try to look. The street is quiet enough
Speaker 1: that I can hear the tap of her stick on
Speaker 1: the pavement, the soft scuff of her shoes, and beneath
Speaker 1: that the sound of my own footsteps. Beneath that the
Speaker 1: distant hum of a world that is still awake, somewhere
Speaker 1: beyond the houses. At the next corner, she stops. She
Speaker 1: does not look back. She turns left toward a narrow
Speaker 1: doorway being a baker's and a shuddered news stand, and
Speaker 1: I watch her disappear. Inside. The doorway is painted red,
Speaker 1: or was once, and the paint is peeling near the
Speaker 1: top in thin strips that curl like the pages of
Speaker 1: an old book. There is a light above the door,
Speaker 1: a small yellow bulb in a wire cage, and as
Speaker 1: she steps inside, it flickers on, casting a square of
Speaker 1: gold onto the sidewalk. I stand there a moment longer.
Speaker 1: The light behind the curtain of the upstairs window comes on, next,
Speaker 1: a soft glow that pushes through the and makes the
Speaker 1: window into something warm, something alive. Then I walk on
Speaker 1: the street continues past the red doorway, past the baker's
Speaker 1: and the news stand, and I walk with it, and
Speaker 1: nothing is different, and everything is different, And the woman
Speaker 1: with the white hair is gone from the street, now
Speaker 1: gone into her house, into her evening, and I am
Speaker 1: still here, still walking, still listening to the sound of
Speaker 1: my own feet on the pavement. A bench with a
Speaker 1: dedication plague. There is a bench at the edge of
Speaker 1: the small park, where the sidewalk turns to gravel, and
Speaker 1: the trees grow close enough together that their branches almost
Speaker 1: touch overhead. I sit down. The wood is cool beneath me,
Speaker 1: damp from an earlier weather that has since passed, and
Speaker 1: I sit there for a while without moving, looking at
Speaker 1: what the park holds in front of me. The grass
Speaker 1: is uneven, peppered with dandelions that have gone to set.
Speaker 1: A child has left a red ball near the swings,
Speaker 1: and it sits there like a small bright wound in
Speaker 1: the green. Beyond the swings there is a patch of
Speaker 1: dirt where the ground has been worn smooth by years
Speaker 1: of shoes, and beyond that a fence with a gate
Speaker 1: that stands open, leading nowhere in particular. But I am
Speaker 1: looking at the bench. There is a plaque on its back,
Speaker 1: a small rectangle of bronze bolted to the wood, and
Speaker 1: I lean fought or read it. The letters are raised slightly,
Speaker 1: rough to the touch, and they say in memory of
Speaker 1: Eleanor Marsh, who sat here every morning and watched the
Speaker 1: children play. I sit back. I let the words settle
Speaker 1: Eleanor Marsh. I do not know her, I will never
Speaker 1: know her. But I know that she sat here, that
Speaker 1: she came to this bench, that she watched the children
Speaker 1: in the morning and saw the swings move and the
Speaker 1: balls roll, and the small, bright chaos of play. I
Speaker 1: know that she is gone now, whoever she was, and
Speaker 1: that the bench remains, and that the words remain, and
Speaker 1: that someone took the time to put her name here,
Speaker 1: to say she was here, to say she mattered. I
Speaker 1: wonder who sat beside her. I wonder if there was
Speaker 1: someone who held her hand while they wan, or someone
Speaker 1: who pushed her hair back from her face, or someone
Speaker 1: who simply sat in silence while the children ran and
Speaker 1: shouted and grew. I wonder if that person is still here,
Speaker 1: still walking the streets, still carrying the memory of a
Speaker 1: bench in a small park and a woman named Eleanor
Speaker 1: who sat there every morning. The wind moves through the
Speaker 1: trees above me, the leaves shift and whisper. I stay
Speaker 1: on the bench a little longer, not because I am sad,
Speaker 1: but because the plaque has made me think of time,
Speaker 1: of how it passes, of how love goes on living
Speaker 1: in the things we leave behind. A name on a plaque,
Speaker 1: a bench in a park, a memory held by someone
Speaker 1: who is still here, still walking, still watching the children play.
Speaker 1: The street cat. As I turn the corner, a cat
Speaker 1: crosses the road. It is small, gray, with white paws
Speaker 1: and a tail held high. It moves with purpose, with
Speaker 1: that particular grace that cats have, and it does not
Speaker 1: look at me as it passes. It has somewhere to be.
Speaker 1: I stop and watch it. It reaches the other side
Speaker 1: of the street, pauses, looks up at a fence, then
Speaker 1: disappears beneath it in one smooth motion. The fence is wooden, old,
Speaker 1: with gaps between the boards that are just large enough
Speaker 1: for a small cat to slip through. The cat is gone,
Speaker 1: the street is empty again. I wonder where it is going.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it has a home, name, a person
Speaker 1: who waits for it to return. I wonder if it
Speaker 1: is hungry, if it is hunting, if it is simply
Speaker 1: exploring its territory in the way the cats do. I
Speaker 1: wonder if it will curl up on a bed as you.
Speaker 1: After the cat's passing, the lamps glow above me, steady
Speaker 1: and warm. The houses along this block or older, their
Speaker 1: facades darker, their windows more likely to be lit. I
Speaker 1: can hear, faintly the sound of someone playing a piano somewhere.
Speaker 1: It is a simple tune, something classical, something I almost recognize.
Speaker 1: I walk on. The piano sound fades as I move away,
Speaker 1: replaced by the sound of my own footsteps, the rhythm
Speaker 1: of my own walking. The evening is full of these
Speaker 1: small encounters, these brief crossings of paths. Each one is
Speaker 1: a story, though not my story. I am only passing through.
Speaker 1: The first music from a window. Some one has opened
Speaker 1: a window upstairs, and music is drifting down to the street.
Speaker 1: It is faint, barely audible, the kind of sound that
Speaker 1: you have to listen for, that you have to let
Speaker 1: wash over you. It is a melody, simple and sweet,
Speaker 1: played on an instrument I cannot quite place. I stop
Speaker 1: beneath the window and look up. The building is residential,
Speaker 1: four stories tall, with balconies that hold potted plants and
Speaker 1: drying clothes. The window is open on the third floor,
Speaker 1: the curtains stirring gently in the evening air. The music
Speaker 1: comes from there, from that room, from that person playing.
Speaker 1: I cannot see the player. The light in the room
Speaker 1: is dim, golden, more shadow than illumination. But I can
Speaker 1: imagine a young woman, perhaps, or an old man, sitting
Speaker 1: at a keyboard or holding a flute, their fingers moving
Speaker 1: over the keys or the holes, their eyes closed, their
Speaker 1: face relaxed. I can imagine the way the sound fills
Speaker 1: the room, the way it escapes through the window, the
Speaker 1: way it finds its way to the street below. The
Speaker 1: melody is familiar, though I cannot name it. It is the
Speaker 1: kind of tune that you know without knowing, that lives
Speaker 1: in the memory of your body, that surfaces in moments
Speaker 1: like this. I hum along quietly, without thinking, and the
Speaker 1: sound joins with the music from above. Then the window closes,
Speaker 1: the music stops. The street is quiet again. I stand
Speaker 1: for a moment longer, listening to the silence. Then I
Speaker 1: continue on my way. The evening has many sounds, and
Speaker 1: each one is a gift. The bridge the street leads
Speaker 1: to a breach, and I walk across it. The bridge
Speaker 1: is old, made of stone, with iron railings that are
Speaker 1: cool to the touch. Beneath it, a small river flows,
Speaker 1: its surface, dark and slow, reflecting the lights from the shore.
Speaker 1: I stop in the middle and look down. The water
Speaker 1: is black, almost invisible, and I can hear it moving
Speaker 1: A soft, constant whisper. There are reeds on the banks,
Speaker 1: tall and green, and beyond them the shapes of trees
Speaker 1: and houses, the silhouette of the town against the night sky.
Speaker 1: I lean against the railing and breathe the air. Here
Speaker 1: is different, cooler, carrying the smell of the river. It
Speaker 1: is the smell of mud and plants and something else,
Speaker 1: something that I cannot name, but that I recognize. It
Speaker 1: is the smell of the world outside of the world,
Speaker 1: beyond the straits and the houses and the lamps. A
Speaker 1: boat passes beneath the bridge. It is small, flat, propelled
Speaker 1: by a single ore. The figure in it is silent, rowing,
Speaker 1: slowly disappearing into the darkness downstream. I watch until the
Speaker 1: boat is gone, until the water settles back into its
Speaker 1: quiet flow. Above me, the stars are beginning to appear.
Speaker 1: The sky is dark, now truly dark, and the stars
Speaker 1: are bright and sharp, as if they have just arrived,
Speaker 1: as if they are waiting to be noticed. I look
Speaker 1: up at them and feel for a moment the smallness
Speaker 1: of my own life, the vastness of the world around me.
Speaker 1: Then I push back from the railing and continue across
Speaker 1: the bridge. The town waits on the other side, and
Speaker 1: the evening continues, and my walk goes on the lamp
Speaker 1: lighter on the other side of the bridge. I meet
Speaker 1: the lamp lighter. He is an old man, small and bent,
Speaker 1: with a long pole in his hand that he uses
Speaker 1: to light the lamps along the street. He nods at
Speaker 1: me as we pass, a greeting that is both friendly
Speaker 1: and routine, the nod of someone who has seen many
Speaker 1: strangers and will see many more. I nod back. I
Speaker 1: want to speak to him, to ask him about his work,
Speaker 1: about the years he has spent walking these streets in
Speaker 1: the evening hours, but I do not. Some conversations are
Speaker 1: not meant to happen, Some stories are not meant to
Speaker 1: be told. He continues on his way, and I continue
Speaker 1: on mine. The lamp lighter is a figure from another time,
Speaker 1: another century. In the modern world, the lamps light themselves,
Speaker 1: triggered by timers or censers, requiring no human hand. But
Speaker 1: here on this street, in this town, the old ways persist.
Speaker 1: The lamp lighter walks, and the lamps come on, and
Speaker 1: the evening is made bright. I think about his life,
Speaker 1: his routine, the rhythm of his days. I think about
Speaker 1: the weather he has walked through the seasons. He has
Speaker 1: seen the changes the town has undergone. I think about
Speaker 1: the people he has met, the nods he has exchanged,
Speaker 1: the silent company he has kept with strangers like me. Ahead,
Speaker 1: the lamp he has just lit burns bright, a small
Speaker 1: beacon in the gathering dark. Behind me, the lamps I
Speaker 1: passed earlier, glow in their rows, marking the way, illuminating
Speaker 1: the night. I am grateful for them, for the light
Speaker 1: they provide, or the path they show. The old bookstore,
Speaker 1: the old bookstore is just ahead, its window full of
Speaker 1: small oddities. I stop and look. There are books, of course,
Speaker 1: stacked on shelves and piled on tables. There are spines
Speaker 1: showing titles that range from the familiar to the obscure.
Speaker 1: But there are other things too, old clocks, globes, spectacles, keys, coins,
Speaker 1: photographs in tarnished frames. The shop is closed, the door locked,
Speaker 1: the lights off, but the window is illuminated from within,
Speaker 1: a soft glow that shows off the treasures inside. It
Speaker 1: is the kind of shop that exists in old towns,
Speaker 1: the kind that holds the memories of generations, the kind
Speaker 1: that you can get lost in for hours. I press
Speaker 1: my face to the glass and look for a book
Speaker 1: I might want. There in the corner of the bottom shelf,
Speaker 1: I see a small red volume, its title worn away
Speaker 1: by time. Beside it a blue book with a gold
Speaker 1: embossed cover. Above them a stack of magazines from decades past,
Speaker 1: their covers faded but still colorful. I imagine the shopkeeper,
Speaker 1: the person who has collected these things, who has arranged
Speaker 1: them with care and pride. I imagine the smell of
Speaker 1: old paper, of leather, of dust. I imagine the sound
Speaker 1: of the floorboards, creaking, of the door opening and closing,
Speaker 1: of the bell that chimes when a customer enters. The
Speaker 1: window is cold against my cheek, but I do not mind.
Speaker 1: I am content to stand here, to look, to imagine.
Speaker 1: Some day, perhaps I will come back, some day, perhaps
Speaker 1: I will go inside. But not tonight. Tonight I am
Speaker 1: only passing through the widow's house. Further along there is
Speaker 1: a house that I have always noticed. It is small, white,
Speaker 1: with blue shutters and a red tile roof. Every evening,
Speaker 1: at the same time a light comes on in the
Speaker 1: upstairs window. There is a mailbox by the gate, a
Speaker 1: name on it that I cannot read. From here, there
Speaker 1: are pots of flowers on the porch, perhaps their red
Speaker 1: blooms bright against the white of the wall. The light
Speaker 1: comes on. It is a warm light, soft and steady,
Speaker 1: and it fills the window with a glow that makes
Speaker 1: the room behind it invisible. I do not know who
Speaker 1: lives here. I do not know what their story is.
Speaker 1: But I imagine an old woman, perhaps a widow, living
Speaker 1: alone in the house where she and her husband raised
Speaker 1: their children. I imagine her turning on the lamp each evening,
Speaker 1: the same lamp in the same room, in the same
Speaker 1: way she has done for years. I do not know
Speaker 1: if this is true. I will probably never know. But
Speaker 1: the light is real, and the house is real, and
Speaker 1: the evening is real, and for a moment I am
Speaker 1: connected to this stranger through the simple act of witnessing.
Speaker 1: I cross the street and walk past the house. The
Speaker 1: gate is closed, the garden is silent, the light glows on.
Speaker 1: I do not look back. I keep walking into the
Speaker 1: quiet of the evening, into the dark a fountain. The
Speaker 1: fountain is dry to night. The basin is empty, its
Speaker 1: stone bottom lined with fallen leaves and the debris of
Speaker 1: the day. The jets are silent, the water spouts closed,
Speaker 1: the pumps turned off until the morning. It is a
Speaker 1: fountain at rest, a fountain waiting. I sit on the
Speaker 1: edge of the basin and look up. The sky above
Speaker 1: is dark, now truly dark, and the stars are clear
Speaker 1: and bright. The constellations are there, the ones I learned
Speaker 1: as a child, the ones I have never been able
Speaker 1: to forget. Oriyan with his belt, the big dipper with
Speaker 1: its handle, the faint line of the milky Way stretching
Speaker 1: across the void. The fountain is in the center of
Speaker 1: a small square, surrounded by benches and trees. The benches
Speaker 1: are empty. The square is quiet, and I am alone
Speaker 1: here in the evening. It is a good feeling, this solitude,
Speaker 1: this stillness. It is the feeling of the world holding
Speaker 1: its breath, of the moment before something happens. I think
Speaker 1: about the water that usually runs here, the sound it makes,
Speaker 1: the way it catches the light. I think about the
Speaker 1: children who play in it in the summer, the couples
Speaker 1: who sit beside it in the evenings, the photographers who
Speaker 1: come to capture its beauty. I think about the life
Speaker 1: it has, the cycle of flowing and stopping, of filling
Speaker 1: and emptying. The stone of the basin is cold beneath me,
Speaker 1: and I can feel the dampness of the leaves through
Speaker 1: my trousers. I do not mind. I am not ready
Speaker 1: to move. I am content to sit here, to look
Speaker 1: up at the stars, to let the evening settle around me.
Speaker 1: The street lamp that flickers there. There is a lamp
Speaker 1: part way down the next block that cannot make up
Speaker 1: its mind. It flickers not constantly, that would be easier,
Speaker 1: more predictable. Instead, it holds steady for a while, casting
Speaker 1: its yellow light on the sidewalk below, and then it wavers, dims, recovers,
Speaker 1: wavers again, as though it is thinking about what it
Speaker 1: wants to do, as though it is having a small
Speaker 1: argument with itself about whether to stay on or go out.
Speaker 1: I stop beneath it. I look up at the bulb,
Speaker 1: a single point of pale orange, and a glass housing
Speaker 1: that has gone cloudy with age. The light falls on
Speaker 1: my face, then falls away, then returns, and I stand
Speaker 1: there in the wavering glow, feeling the warmth of it
Speaker 1: on my skin when it is on, feeling the cool
Speaker 1: of the evening when it is not. There is something
Speaker 1: about a lamp that flickers. It is not broken. It's
Speaker 1: still works still does what a lamp is supposed to do,
Speaker 1: but it does not do it with certainty. It hesitates.
Speaker 1: It asks to be noticed the way a voice might
Speaker 1: ask to be heard in a quiet room, the way
Speaker 1: a hand might reach out to touch a shoulder in
Speaker 1: the dark. I stay beneath the lamp for a minute
Speaker 1: or two. The street is empty, the houses are dark
Speaker 1: behind their windows. Somewhere far away, a car passes, its headlights,
Speaker 1: sweeping across the buildings, and gone, And then there is
Speaker 1: only the lamp and the flicker. And me. I think
Speaker 1: about consistency. I think about how easy it is to
Speaker 1: take for granted the things that stay the same, the
Speaker 1: lights that turn on and stay on, the streets that
Speaker 1: are there when we walk them, the evenings that arrive
Speaker 1: on schedule. And I think about how the things that waver,
Speaker 1: the things that flicker, the things that are not quite sure,
Speaker 1: they ask something of us. They ask us to pay attention,
Speaker 1: They ask us to notice. The lamp steadies. It holds
Speaker 1: its light for a long moment, bright and warm and certain.
Speaker 1: Then it flickers once twice and settles back into its rhythm.
Speaker 1: It's indecision, it's gentle, wavering between on and off, between
Speaker 1: staying and going, between the light and the dark. I
Speaker 1: walk on behind me. The lamp continues its small uncertainty,
Speaker 1: its quiet conversation with the night. I carry its light
Speaker 1: with me, or the memory of its light, for a
Speaker 1: few steps, and then I let it go, and I
Speaker 1: keep walking. And the street goes on, and the evening
Speaker 1: goes on, and everything is flickering, everything is steady, everything
Speaker 1: is both at once the church. But the church is
Speaker 1: just ahead. It's door open, as it always is. I
Speaker 1: step inside. The interior is cool and quiet, the air
Speaker 1: carrying the smell of candles and old wood and incense.
Speaker 1: The pews are empty, the nave dimly lit by the
Speaker 1: light that filters through the stained glass windows. I walk
Speaker 1: down the center aisle, my footsteps soft on the stone floor.
Speaker 1: The altar is simple, a table with a cloth across
Speaker 1: above a candle burning on either side. There are flowers,
Speaker 1: white lilies. There smell faint but present. There are prayer
Speaker 1: books in the pews. Their page is worn by the
Speaker 1: hands of those who have come before. I do not pray.
Speaker 1: I am not that kind of person, not anymore. But
Speaker 1: I sit in one of the pews anyway, just for
Speaker 1: a moment, just to be here in this space. The
Speaker 1: silence is different here, deeper than the silence of the street.
Speaker 1: It is the silence of centuries, of generations of worshipers,
Speaker 1: of all the hopes and fears that have been spoken
Speaker 1: in this place. Through the stained glass, I can see
Speaker 1: the colors of the windows, blue and red and gold,
Speaker 1: depicting saints and angels and scenes from the life of Christ.
Speaker 1: The light that passes through them is soft, changed, transformed
Speaker 1: by the glass into something almost other world. I close
Speaker 1: my eyes and breathe. The cool air fills my lungs,
Speaker 1: the silence fills my ears, the smell of the church
Speaker 1: fills my nose. I stay like this for a long moment,
Speaker 1: just being, just existing in this place. Then I open
Speaker 1: my eyes, stand and walk back down the aisle to
Speaker 1: the door. The quietest hour. It is the quietest hour now,
Speaker 1: the hour when the street empties and the lamps take over.
Speaker 1: I can feel it in the air, in the way
Speaker 1: the sounds have faded, in the way the darkness has settled.
Speaker 1: It is late, perhaps or early, depending on how you
Speaker 1: look at it. The day is over, the night is here,
Speaker 1: and everything in between has slipped away. Walk slowly taking
Speaker 1: my time. There is no rush, no reason to hurry.
Speaker 1: The street is mine now, or I am its, or
Speaker 1: we are together in this quiet. The lamps are my companions,
Speaker 1: my guides, my witnesses. They light the way and I
Speaker 1: follow around me. The houses are dark, their windows shuddered,
Speaker 1: their doors closed. The people inside are sleeping or trying
Speaker 1: to sleep, or lying awake in their beds, thinking about
Speaker 1: the day that passed and the day that will come.
Speaker 1: They do not know I am here. They do not
Speaker 1: know I am walking. They are in their own worlds,
Speaker 1: their own silences, their own quiet hours. I think about
Speaker 1: the word quiet and what it means. It does not
Speaker 1: mean absence of sound. It means accents of noise, of
Speaker 1: the clamor and clutter of the day. It means the
Speaker 1: space where thoughts can settle, where feelings can surface, where
Speaker 1: the self can be alone without being lonely. The street
Speaker 1: bends ahead, and I follow it. The lamps bend with me,
Speaker 1: their reflections stretching on the pavement, their light creating shapes
Speaker 1: and shadows that shift as I move. I am not afraid,
Speaker 1: I am not alone. I am exactly where I am
Speaker 1: supposed to be. The star above the roof line. I
Speaker 1: look up and see the first star. It is just
Speaker 1: above the roof line, a small bright point in the darkness,
Speaker 1: and it is the only one visible yet. The rest
Speaker 1: of the sky is still too light, still too hazy.
Speaker 1: But this one star has broken through, has claimed its
Speaker 1: place in the evening. I stop and watch it. The
Speaker 1: star is steady, unwavering, fixed point in the turning sky.
Speaker 1: It does not twinkle, not yet. It is simply there,
Speaker 1: simply shiny, simply being what stars are. I think about
Speaker 1: the light it is sending, the journey it has taken,
Speaker 1: the years it has spent, burning in the vastness of space.
Speaker 1: I raise my hand and point at it. My finger
Speaker 1: is just a silhouette against the dark, a small dark
Speaker 1: line connecting me to the sky. I do not make
Speaker 1: a wish, I do not whisper a prayer. I simply point,
Speaker 1: simply acknowledge, simply say silently, I see you, I know
Speaker 1: you are there. The star does not respond, of course
Speaker 1: it does not. It is too far away, too old,
Speaker 1: too vast to notice a single human on a single
Speaker 1: street in a single town, on a single evening. But
Speaker 1: that does not matter. What matters is the seeing, the
Speaker 1: acknowledging the connection, I lower my hand and keep walking.
Speaker 1: The star stays where it is fixed above the roof line,
Speaker 1: waiting for the night to deepen, for the other stars
Speaker 1: to appear, for the sky to fill with light. It
Speaker 1: is patient, the star. It has time the walk home.
Speaker 1: I turn and begin walk home. The street is the
Speaker 1: same street I came down, but it is different, now,
Speaker 1: more silent, more still. The shops are closed, the benches empty,
Speaker 1: the trees swaying gently in the breeze that has come
Speaker 1: up again. The lamps are the same, but the light
Speaker 1: they cast seems softer, warmer, more welcoming. I passed the church.
Speaker 1: Its door is still open, but the inside is darker now,
Speaker 1: the candles burned lower, the silence deeper. I pass the fountain,
Speaker 1: still dry, still waiting. I passed the widow's house. The
Speaker 1: light in the upstairs window is still on, a small
Speaker 1: yellow glow in the dark. I passed the bookstore, the calf,
Speaker 1: the pharmacy. I passed the bus stop where I sat earlier,
Speaker 1: the library where I looked in the window, the park
Speaker 1: where the old couple sat holding hands. Each place is
Speaker 1: the same as before, but changed by the hour, by
Speaker 1: the dark by the quiet that has settled over everything.
Speaker 1: My feet know the way they carry me, without thought,
Speaker 1: without effort, down the streets and around the corners that
Speaker 1: lead to my home. I do not need to think
Speaker 1: about where I am going. I simply go. I think
Speaker 1: about the evening, about all the things I have seen,
Speaker 1: all the moments I have witnessed, the baker wiping down
Speaker 1: his counter, the postman on his rounds, the cat crossing
Speaker 1: the road, the music drifting from the window. Each one
Speaker 1: is a bead on a string, a moment in a sequence,
Speaker 1: a part of the hole. The street cat returns. Just
Speaker 1: as I reach the corner near my house, I see
Speaker 1: the cat again. It is the same cat, I am
Speaker 1: sure of it, the same gray shape, with the white
Speaker 1: paws and the high tail. It is sitting on a wall,
Speaker 1: looking at me, its eyes reflecting the light of the
Speaker 1: lamp above. I stop. The cat does not move. We
Speaker 1: look at each other for a long moment, the cat
Speaker 1: and I two creatures sharing a street in the quiet
Speaker 1: of the evening. Then the cat blinks, slowly, deliberately, and
Speaker 1: jumps down from the wall. It disappears into the darkness
Speaker 1: of a garden, and I am alone again. I wonder
Speaker 1: if the cat knows me, if it recognizes me from earlier,
Speaker 1: if it is simply curious about the stranger who passed
Speaker 1: by once and is now passing by again. I wonder
Speaker 1: what the cat sees when it looks at me, what
Speaker 1: world it inhabits, what life it lives In the hours
Speaker 1: when I am asleep, I do not follow the cat.
Speaker 1: I do not try to pet it, or pick it up,
Speaker 1: or make friends with it. Some encounters are meant to
Speaker 1: be brief, passing, without consequence. The cat has its life
Speaker 1: and I have mine, and we share only this moment,
Speaker 1: the street, this evening. I keep walking. The corner is
Speaker 1: just ahead, and then the gate, and then the door,
Speaker 1: and then home. The baker's shop dark. Now the baker's
Speaker 1: shop is dark. Now, it's windows black, its door closed.
Speaker 1: The smell of bread is gone, replaced by the ordinary
Speaker 1: smell of the street, stone and dust and the faint
Speaker 1: exhaust of cars. But I stop anyway, just for a moment,
Speaker 1: just to remember. Earlier when I passed, the shop was
Speaker 1: still open, the baker still working, The oven is still warm.
Speaker 1: Now it is finished. The day is done, and the
Speaker 1: shop has returned to the quiet of the night. I
Speaker 1: think about the baker going home, taking off his apron,
Speaker 1: sitting down to his own meal. I think about him resting, sleeping,
Speaker 1: waking to do it all again tomorrow. The doorway is
Speaker 1: still warm. I can feel it from where I stand,
Speaker 1: A faint heat radiating from the building, escaping through the cracks.
Speaker 1: The ovens are cooling now, their fires banked, their work complete,
Speaker 1: But the warmth remains remains for a while, remains as
Speaker 1: a trace of the labor that happened inside. I think
Speaker 1: about bread, about all the steps that go into making it,
Speaker 1: the flour and water and yeast, the mixing and kneading
Speaker 1: and shaping, the baking and cooling and selling. I think
Speaker 1: about the people who will eat it, the meals. It
Speaker 1: will be part of the lives, it will nourish. It
Speaker 1: is a simple thing, bread, but it is also a miracle,
Speaker 1: a transformation, a gift. I touched the door just for
Speaker 1: a moment, then move on. The lights upstairs ahead. In
Speaker 1: an apartment building, one window is lit. It is on
Speaker 1: the third floor. The curtains open, the lights spilling out
Speaker 1: onto the street below. I can see the silhouette of
Speaker 1: some one moving inside, a shape, passing back and forth,
Speaker 1: going about their evening. I stop and watch. The person
Speaker 1: does not know they are being observed. They are simply
Speaker 1: living their life, doing whatever people do in the hours
Speaker 1: before bed, reading perhaps, or watching television, or preparing for
Speaker 1: the next day. They are ordinary, anonymous, unknown to me.
Speaker 1: But for a moment we are connected. Their light reaches me,
Speaker 1: reaches the street, reaches the darkness around me. It is
Speaker 1: a small thing, a simple thing, but it is also
Speaker 1: a gift. It is proof that I am not alone,
Speaker 1: that others are here, that the world is full of
Speaker 1: lives being lived. I do not wonder who the person is.
Speaker 1: I do not imagine their story. I simply acknowledge their presence,
Speaker 1: their light, their existence in this same evening, in this
Speaker 1: same town, on this same street. Then I move on,
Speaker 1: and the light stays behind a small beacon in the
Speaker 1: night the front door. Again. I reach my building. The
Speaker 1: gate is familiar, the path is familiar, The steps up
Speaker 1: to the door are familiar. I take out my key,
Speaker 1: but I do not open the door yet. I stand
Speaker 1: for a moment, looking at the building, at the windows above,
Speaker 1: at the vines that climb the walls. The building is old,
Speaker 1: three stories, with a red tile roof and white walls.
Speaker 1: My apartment is on the second floor, the one with
Speaker 1: the window that looks out onto the street. I can
Speaker 1: see the lamp from here, the one outside my window,
Speaker 1: the one that lights my room. In the evenings, I
Speaker 1: think about the evening, about all the steps I have taken,
Speaker 1: all the streets I have walked, all the things I
Speaker 1: have seen. It has been a long walk, Though not
Speaker 1: in distance. It has been a long walk in time,
Speaker 1: in experience, in the accumulation of moments that make up
Speaker 1: a life. I put the key in the lock, I
Speaker 1: turn it. The door opens the stairs. The stairwell is quiet.
Speaker 1: The light is on a single bulb that flickers slightly,
Speaker 1: casting its yellow glow on the walls and the steps.
Speaker 1: I climb slowly, one hand on the railing, my footsteps
Speaker 1: soft on the wooden treads. The stairs creak slightly with
Speaker 1: each step, the sound familiar, welcome. I have climbed these
Speaker 1: stairs many times, in the evening and in the morning,
Speaker 1: enjoy and in sorrow, in health and in illness. They
Speaker 1: know me, these stairs, and I know them. On the
Speaker 1: first landing, I stop. The window here looks out on
Speaker 1: to the back of the building, onto the alley below,
Speaker 1: onto the bins and the bicycles, and the ordinary clutter
Speaker 1: of urban life. The sky above is dark, the stars
Speaker 1: now visible more than there were before. I continue climbing
Speaker 1: the second floor. My floor is just ahead. I can
Speaker 1: see my door at the end of the hall, the
Speaker 1: number on it, the mack beneath it. I can see
Speaker 1: the light coming from beneath the door, the light I
Speaker 1: left on before I went out, the light that welcomes
Speaker 1: me home. I reached the top of the stairs. I
Speaker 1: walk down the hall. I stop at my door, the
Speaker 1: key in the lock. I take out my key again.
Speaker 1: The lock is the same as all the other locks
Speaker 1: in the building, a simple mechanism that has never failed me.
Speaker 1: I insert the key, turn it. Hear the click that
Speaker 1: means the door is open. I push the door open.
Speaker 1: The apartment is dark, but the light from the hallway
Speaker 1: spills in, illuminating the entrance, the coat rack, the shoes
Speaker 1: line beneath it. I step inside, close the door behind me,
Speaker 1: and stand in the darkness of my own home. I
Speaker 1: do not turn on the lights. I do not need to.
Speaker 1: I know this place too well, know every piece of furniture,
Speaker 1: every object, every corner and crevice. I know where the
Speaker 1: table is with chairs are where the window is that
Speaker 1: looks out onto the street below. I take off my
Speaker 1: coat and hang it on the rack. I take off
Speaker 1: my shoes and leave them by the door. I stand
Speaker 1: for a moment in the darkness, breathing, being simply existing
Speaker 1: in this space that is mine. The apartment smells like home,
Speaker 1: like the books on my shelves, like the tea I
Speaker 1: made earlier, like the soap in the bathroom, like the
Speaker 1: years I have spent here. It is a good smell,
Speaker 1: a familiar smell, a smell that tells me I am
Speaker 1: exactly where I belong. Inside I walk into the living room.
Speaker 1: The window is still open, the curtains still stirring in
Speaker 1: the gentle breeze that has come through. I close the window,
Speaker 1: pull the curtains, turn on the small lamp in the corner.
Speaker 1: The room fills with soft light, warm and amber, the
Speaker 1: kind of light that makes everything look softer, gentler, more
Speaker 1: at peace. The chair by the window is waiting. It
Speaker 1: is an old chair, worn and comfortable, the kind of
Speaker 1: chair that has shaped itself to my body over the years.
Speaker 1: I sit down and the chair accepts me, cradles me,
Speaker 1: holds me the way it always has. The table beside
Speaker 1: me has a book on it, a cup of tea,
Speaker 1: a glass of water. I do not reach for them.
Speaker 1: Not yet. I am not ready to do anything, not
Speaker 1: ready to read or drink or sleep. I am ready
Speaker 1: only to sit, only to be still, only to let
Speaker 1: the evening settle around me. I think about the walk,
Speaker 1: about all the things I saw and felt and witnessed.
Speaker 1: I think about the baker and the postman and the cat.
Speaker 1: I think about the music and the stars and the
Speaker 1: light in the window. I think about the church, and
Speaker 1: the fountain, and the old couple on the bench. Each
Speaker 1: moment is with me, now, inside me, part of me.
Speaker 1: The evening is over, the night is here, and I
Speaker 1: am all looking out. I look out the window. The
Speaker 1: street is quiet now, the lamps casting their pools of
Speaker 1: light on the pavement, the houses dark and still. I
Speaker 1: can see the corner where I met the cat, the
Speaker 1: bench where I sat, the path I walked down and
Speaker 1: then back up again. The street is the same street
Speaker 1: it was an hour ago, but it is different now.
Speaker 1: It is emptier, quieter, more silent. The people who were
Speaker 1: there have gone home, have gone to bed, have gone
Speaker 1: to their own lives. The street belongs to the night, now,
Speaker 1: to the darkness, to the stars. I think about the
Speaker 1: people who live here, the strangers I passed, the lives
Speaker 1: they are living. I think about the baker closing his shop,
Speaker 1: the postman finishing his rounds, the woman reading in the calf.
Speaker 1: I think about the old couple on the bench, the
Speaker 1: widow in her house, the child chasing the ball. Each
Speaker 1: one is a story, a life, a world. I think
Speaker 1: about myself, about my own life, about the years I
Speaker 1: have spent on this street and in this town. I
Speaker 1: think about the walks I have taken, the evenings I
Speaker 1: have watched, the quiet hours I have sat through. I
Speaker 1: think about the things I have seen, the things I
Speaker 1: have felt, the things I will carry with me. The
Speaker 1: street is peaceful now, the street is asleep, and I
Speaker 1: am here looking down at it, part of it and
Speaker 1: apart from it, connected and alone a people, more minutes
Speaker 1: of quiet. I sit in my chair and I do nothing.
Speaker 1: I do not read, I do not turn on the television.
Speaker 1: I do not reach for my phone or my book
Speaker 1: or my cup of tea. I simply sit, simply breathe,
Speaker 1: simply let the minutes pass. The clock on the wall
Speaker 1: ticks quietly, its second hand, moving in its steady circle.
Speaker 1: Each tick is a moment, a small piece of time
Speaker 1: that slips away and is gone. I do not count them.
Speaker 1: I do not try to hold them. I simply let
Speaker 1: them go. Outside. The night deepens, the stars multiply, spreading
Speaker 1: across the sky, filling the darkness with their light. The
Speaker 1: lamps below grow brighter, or perhaps my eyes grow more
Speaker 1: used to the dark. Either way, the street is visible,
Speaker 1: clear present. I think about the word present and what
Speaker 1: it means. It means here now, this moment, this breath,
Speaker 1: this heart beat. It means not in the past, not
Speaker 1: in the future, but here, in this instant, in this place,
Speaker 1: I am present. The street is present, the night is present,
Speaker 1: Everything is here, everything is now, Everything is enough. My
Speaker 1: eyes grow heavy. The darkness outside grows deeper, the quiet
Speaker 1: inside grows louder. Or perhaps I grow quieter, or perhaps
Speaker 1: we grow together, the silence and I, into something that
Speaker 1: is neither and both. I do not fight it. I
Speaker 1: do not try to stay awake. I let the drowsiness come.
Speaker 1: Let it settle over me like a blanket. Let it
Speaker 1: carry me toward the place where sleep waits. Good night.
Speaker 1: The night is here now, fully and completely. The street
Speaker 1: is dark and quiet, the lamps glowing softly, the stars
Speaker 1: shining above. I am in my chair by the window,
Speaker 1: my eyes half closed, my breathing slow and deep. I
Speaker 1: want to say something to mark the end of the evening,
Speaker 1: to acknowledge the walk I have taken and the things
Speaker 1: I have seen. But there is nothing to say. The
Speaker 1: story is over, the walk is done, the night has come.
Speaker 1: So I will simply sit here in my chair, in
Speaker 1: my apartment, in my quiet corner of the town. I
Speaker 1: will simply breathe, simply be, simply let the night take
Speaker 1: me where it will. The street is still, the lamp
Speaker 1: outside my window glows, the stars turn slowly overhead, and
Speaker 1: I the narrator, the walker, the watcher. I am here,
Speaker 1: I am present, I am at peace. Good night,