It is the season I have been waiting for. After all that bright and warm nonsense, the temperatures are dropping. Fires replace the smell of barbecues. The mornings are foggy. The sun sets early and the night starts at 5. So it is only natural and makes total sense to send this week’s article late at night, and it is not at all because I procrastinated the whole day.
I love the night. There is nothing like a night walk or a run at dusk. Life after dark takes place and everything is trapped in mystery, a different world suddenly seems accessible. An outsider, observing from the other side of the windows. The lights inside undress houses like nothing, someone’s life under a yellow filter. Is that your living room? I like that kitchen, what’s for dinner? What are you watching on the TV?
I keep on walking. Avoiding parcs, weird corners and small alleyways. I keep walking, the moon is big and bright, it is now fully dark and I have a train to catch. Because that is the main thing about the night. Where are people going? What are they doing out as such a sinner hour? I know what I am doing, I know it is often ungodly. Like a moth, attracted to all the night lights.
A taxi stops near the bank and two girls rush in, struggling with their shopping bags. Where are they going, home? I once spent the whole night in a taxi, an assignment I chose for university. I found it fascinating, the people who work at night, so I took my chance. I cannot for the life of me find the footage, but I remember being told that it is easier to be a night driver for two main reasons: less traffic and nicer people. Then I guess, from personal experience, there is something about a night drive. It is like setting foot in a different world, a parallel universe.
In Belgium, the roads are lit up in orange all across the country making the country visible from space. In the UK the roads are dark, so dark you feel swallowed by the night, car after car disappearing. Then there’s the occasional stop at the petrol station where a bored and sleepy employee will judge your choice of car snacks. And, in a few minutes, as you restart the car and regain the black road, they are left alone again. In their bright glass prison, in the middle of nowhere.
I watch the taxi leave and head down the road, the two girls’ silhouettes at the back. I can now see the train station lights, the coffee shop is closing and a barista is cleaning the counter while the other put the chairs on the tables, a final effort to make the last customers leave. As they finish their shift, bartenders take over for the night in the great espresso-to-martini migration.
The train at night is the opposite of the car; the inside is well-lit, and the outside is pitch black until the next station. The rush hour crowd is gone, the coach is empty, I look out the windows and try to find the stars swallowed by light pollution. In a few stops, I’ll be part of the night crowd, the ones filling the pubs and bars, those you can observe from the other side of the windows. An outsider.