Stories
Evening
In the meantime, glowing lanterns are hastily lit as the dusky shade of evening approaches. The stubborn streets are in no hurry to let go of the moonstone haze that clung to them during the sunset. They got attached to the company, knowing how fleeting this blue transparency is, but are full of hope as they are still not sure what the time ahead entails. The only thing clear to them is that everything felt during the day will remain unchanged forever.
The evening has learnt time and time again from the laws around, that everything has its own moment to exit the stage, which gives empowerment with each silence that starts. Despite presumptions about the evening’s cold nature and mysterious composure, nothing is ever done on its own accord.
Being twinned with the night’s enigmatic characteristics means that evening never wanders alone. They are always by each other’s side. Together, they easily envelope any existing element in the universe with darkness, filling their surroundings with nocturnal projections. One-sided intrigue.
The tranquil evening, an impartial mediator between light and dark, slowly relinquishes to the opacity of night - a time in which noises and objects are all more evident, yet, languid. A time in which a tree’s leaves shudder and fret with increasing intensity as the wind rushes between its branches with an unsettling jolt, as if it was determined to never see those leaves again. The truth is, it was waiting to greet its orderless foliage.
With the arrival of night, the sky reveals a galaxy that is invisible during the day. Every movement encourages the thoughts of a city to drift along endless celestial paths. The dusk is daunting but quiet, providing the streets with a new perspective, turning them into canals of glowing car headlights whose ripples are created by the pulses from late-night bars.
Despite its vigour, night's most thrilling time is when morning returns. This is a time when the streetlights, its most faithful confidants, feel most drained of energy as they gently disconnect themselves from the lighting network. They anticipate the arrival of their satellite mentor, who signals the start of the light parade.
“Everything has its own moment to exit the stage”
Bus stop
A bus stop’s lights become brighter as the day draws to a gradual close. This is where the evening begins - at a silent structure set by a busy crossroads. A modest bend of strict urban handwriting with a flourish of ever-changing green, red and yellow lights emerging from its page. Evening does not start a trillion miles away, where celestial bodies switch on and off like a busy bus station control panel. Nor does it develop between distant intergalactic routes, where every movement is so majestic that it absorbs time, the most precious of magnitudes, if such exists.
No, it begins by a bus stop - by a site that withholds an enclosed mechanism whose role is to switch the surrounding traffic lights on and off, done at such a frequency that, from a distance, it seems as though the city is breathing. It would be so much better if the lonesome bus stop knew at least partially the significance of where it stands.
In spite of the fact that the corner is endowed with a role on a vast cosmic scale, it appears as if it is vulnerable in its loneliness, a tiny mesh of fluorescence standing out against a backdrop of nocturnal darkness, as if the only thing that maintains its conviction is a distant memory of when it was once trustingly planted amid the urban chaos of moving lights and ferrying streets.
As the bus stop stands alone against the starry night sky, it is guilelessly focused on remaining a stoic guardian, loyal to true sincerity. It feels peace in the fact that it is its duty to be there with a view of the breathing city, in front of unearthly backgrounds at the beginning of every night.
“Evening does not start a trillion miles away, where celestial bodies switch on and off like a busy bus station control panel.”
Beginning
All stories begin with something. This one begins with a spark. A fiery small particle surges through a stubborn electrical wire, starting its arduous, never-ending journey through rusty and imposing pylons - an industrial omnipresence. It is this spark’s brave journey that breathes life into the yet gloomy city. Each flicker of light flies towards the mysteries discovered at every corner, providing extra clarity against the tired evening haze of undeterred cars and trains of thought.
It starts when a faithful old city is seen from a distant, empty walkway. Its many glowing corners, from afar, can form a secret pattern - a sign. Even when the sky is dimmed and the walkway is immersed in wary, echoing shadows, it still illuminates the way forward.
The origins lie in switching off a phone and wandering out into the street, aware that turning off a device doesn’t mean being left without a signal. After all, there is a permanent signal that is always there, one that is continuously releasing inexplicable code. Decoding this takes unbroken focus, even though the clue could be hidden in the origin of the signal.
It occurs like any morning does, at 4 o’clock, when a shy melody emerges from a bar, where all that remains are three life-long friends, inebriated with thoughts of the world, pouring their hearts into each other’s glasses. Their opinionated noise reverberate into the shimmering early-morning air, which neatly and skillfully gathers their voices and echoes, storing them in its invisible archive - a treasured chest of city memories.
Yes, this story definitely begins with a spark. A minute spark that courses through the veins of the metropolis, turning the lights on everywhere, illuminating infinite sudden words across an endless number of streets. These streets extend into the universe, like imaginary tangents with the uttermost unexpectedness, reaching faraway galaxies and completing their lines at some distant utopia; leaving imprints as evidence of an extraordinary journey that originated from such a quiet lane.
And as the tiny spark returns to where it started, exhausted and flickering, it awaits its next journey, moved by the knowledge that something so small can light up anything - from the cosiest corner of a tranquil station to venturing out into a distant world.