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Citizens of the Night
AT SIX O'CLOCK, just as she did every morning, even though it was still black as night, Anja shut the front door and braced herself against an unforgiving subzero, the kind of cold to put a person into shock, before descending the outdoor steps. The new security light guided her down, then clicked off parsimoniously as soon as she reached street level. Freshly fallen snow glittered beneath a dim streetlight; elsewhere, the darkness lay deep. It was windless, almost silent.
As she tucked the neck muffler into her zipped-up tracksuit, poking at it with oversized mittens, Anja observed the basement studio. Shutters down and lights out, as usual. Her five-thirty message had clearly failed to raise him. Some people never make anything of themselves. They accept failure. They wallow and decline. The thought made her shiver in the gripping freeze and she stamped her feet. Well, she’d warned him. First a month and now seven weeks late. No rent by five p.m. and he was out. She lingered a while, looking at the apartment’s silent door, as if it could swing open to a fanfare if it only wanted to, but had somehow forgotten how. Anja blinked. A mist was freezing onto her face, making her petite nose want to shrink further in. With a clipped, decisive hup, she turned and jogged off through the empty shadows, past the bins and the dirty ice heaped in gutters, huffing breaths that steamed when she passed under lamplight. Every thud and crunch that she made in the snow, every metronomic bob of her blonde hair, every yes, yes, yes, yes of her advance, confirmed her belief. She was going to make it. It was what she did. Hers was a bulldozing figure, small and svelte, pounding onward. Sensing her from the road, an automated delivery buggy shifted cautiously away before rolling by on its fat tyres. |
In the basement bedsit, the lights would not come on for another two hours. Within the building, all remained blessedly quiet and her tenant snuffled contently in his sleep. He dreamed that he was standing alone at night in the shallows of an ocean, while all around him, like softly falling snow, points of white light dropped out of the sky and down to the sea, making gentle sounds as they met the surface. He cupped his hands to catch them here and there. Every softly shining dot that landed on his skin melted to a colour and sounded a musical note. More began to fall, and faster, playing a rhapsodic enchantment in his palms. It might have gone on everlastingly, but when he looked down, the black water stared back at him with a million eyes and he felt fear. Even though he could not see them, or the sandy ocean floor that they were scurrying across, he knew that two silver lobsters were coming straight for his toes. Yannick woke with a start. Tall even for a Nordic man, his feet poked out the end of his lumpy duvet and he instinctively drew them back in.
He reached for his flashing mobile. “Today’s the day,” read the message. His head fell back against the pillow. The bedsit was a lost cause. His for only a few more hours. Maybe he should just stay in. Make the most of it, do some laundry. Then go and enquire at the shelters. He lay under the covers a while longer, debating between spending one last day in a warm apartment or giving work another go, however futile it had become. Recently, his daily earnings as a rider had dwindled to little more than the price of a hot meal plus bike repairs. Saving towards the rent, let alone anything resembling a future, was a hope abandoned. If only he could conjure up something better paid by dreaming it into reality, or rubbing his palms together... |
