Nightscape

By JP Malig

THE soft gentle fall of raindrops on his face woke the young man from his short and uneasy sleep. Amber-colored light from nearby lamp-posts cast dim shadows around him, as he slowly opened his eyes.

          Sharp blades of grass brushing against his arms reminded him where he was – a small hill on a park, just a few blocks away from a bus terminal, in a city far away from home.

          He gathered up his things – a semi-backpack and a parka, which also doubled up as a sleeping mat. The young man thought of Tom Wolfe, who was among those who built the foundation of literary journalism and Jack Kerouac, an icon in urban literature and the chronicler of the American beat movement.

          His thoughts shifted on Basho and the other Japanese poets who, under the influence of Zen Buddhism, imprinted the wabi lifestyle into their written work.

          He slowly stood up and raised his left arm, where his wristwatch was, towards the light to see what time it was. It was hardly two o’clock in the morning.

          He knew he had to go somewhere else, somewhere dry to pass the night. With his backpack and parka on, he slowly went down the small hill and crossed the street towards the brightly-lit avenue across the road.

          Rubber on asphalt. The day’s grime washed away by the rain. Roads and avenues like throbbing veins and arteries within the human body – this city.

          He saw humanity’s Babel-like obsession in the tall buildings and high-rise towers all pointing skyward. Height is supremacy in the urban cities created by humankind, with corporate executives like ancient rulers of yore scanning and viewing their kingdom below.

          But for now, the countless buildings are empty, their occupants during the day comfortably sleeping soundly in their homes.

          The young man found solitude in the city streets, with the darkness encloaking him like a mistress meeting a secret lover.

          He lit a cigarette, relishing the warmth it gave him. He remembered the young couple’s sounds of passion that also roused him from his sleep earlier that night. They too saw the park as a quiet refuge from the urban jungle that was this city. The two, lost in their lovemaking, hardly noticed him as he moved away from near where they were.

          He felt a shard of longing embed itself within him. Of a girl he once knew in the city, yet he knows no longer anymore.

          Slowly shaking his head, he continued to walk – losing himself in a crowd of pedestrians and people waiting for taxis and buses to bring them home.

          Images of the hours that passed the night before slowly came rushing in. A bottle of beer near his favorite café. A letter and a post card written under the light of the moon. People, all in their youth, passing by as he finished his bottle.

          The noise. The kaleidoscope of neon lights within and outside bars and night establishments. A taxi ride to escape the deafening noise and dizzying lights.

          His feet finally brought him to granite benches near a train station. There, young couples also passed the night away, in a seemingly collective disdain for the motels and lodging inns in the city’s downtown district.

          Languages foreign to him broke the night’s silence, as he laid down his tired body across one of the stone benches.

          Amber-colored street lights. Sirens of police cars. Empty buildings. Silent streets. Hushed conversations. Headlights of taxicabs and cars that pierced through the darkness. The soft fall of rain filled the nightscape around him as he closed his eyes. He had to get a few more hours of rest before catching his flight the following morning.

          "You were the one who walked away, not I," he whispered into the night, as sleep finally came.

JPM/16 July 200