To anticipate and dissuade any worries, I just want to mention that while this is in the first person, it is not, nor based on, me. I share some of his thoughts, that is inevitable, but mostly it is just a character study, of sorts. Ok, carry on.
While I'm here actually, do comment on what you read into him. I think it would be helpful and certainly pretty interesting.
___________
There was always something magical about the night. I imagine that were I freed of everyday responsibilities I would spend most of my waking hours there. That we should live in daylight I imagine to be a human construct, more suited to convienience of labour than the laughably named human "nature". As if there were anything to be called natural among humans. Ask a man from the past whether those walking the streets today are natural; what do you suppose his answer would be? In such a vain why should it be any more natural to live in day than to live in night?
This is an old argument, but one I have frequently with myself. Often this is followed by an urge to display my "new"found philosophy by throwing open the doors and walking into the night, and wouldn't you know it, this is one of those nights. I pull on my jacket and prepare myself for a stroll.
The air is brisk, as evidenced by my breath appearing before me. I play with it for a bit, make believe I'm smoking and the like. I never could resist that one. I keep in touch with my inner child to an appropriate extent, though usually only when no one is around to judge me as being childish. Usually only on these walks. I move on.
I wonder if anyone else has joined me in this place. I mentioned that the night is magical. I cannot be the only one who realises this. It touches ones muse in a way that daylight does not, cannot. It breeds a form of excitement, no doubt stemming from an instinctive fear of the dark. In the orange twilight of the city night we are brought to face that fear, but at a safe distance. Streetlights hold our fear at bay like the glass standing between you and the lions in the zoo. We are safe to look at it, study it. In my case this means pressing myself up against the glass in the conflicting hopes that it will both hold and that it will break and I will fall through, forced to face that which I would normally keep at a safe distance. I hear a noise in a dark alley.
A mental masochist, that is the phrase I use, most often in jest, to describe myself. I put myself in dangerous or difficult situations not because I'm foolish, or because I'm some sort of adrenalin junkie. Not because I wish to die but because I wish to find out how close I can get to the flame without being burnt. It's a purely scientific thing. A study of the self, in preperation of the event that I am put into a tricky situation not of my own design. The noise in the alley calls me. Not by name, or even on purpose. There is just a noise there that I feel requires my presence.
We are different at night. There is us in the day and us at night. It is a sad fact that most try to combine the two if not ignore one altogether. Our day selves, this is the one we show everyone else, because this is when we are on constant display. This may be a facade, or it may be one's actual self. But it is almost always responsible. The night however...The nightside is more primal. Our eyes look around franticly for...something. We are impulsive and rash, passionate and furious, and as my eyes grow used to the dark, I see a drunk playing with a cat in the same sense that that same cat probably played with a rodent earlier today, in the waking hours. I feel the impulse, the fury. I cry out and he stops.
There is music at night. Sure, the clubs and pubs. But I talk of the city itself. In the day it's noise. Cars, people, everyday goings on. But at night it becomes art, the beating heart of the city slowed to a relaxed throbing. Badum. Badum. Badum. My own heart mimics this heartbeat as the man walks towards me. He shouts some curses and, I imagine insults. He is in front of me now. I cannot hear him, so drunk am I on the night. I will him to hit me.
There is blood. Most of it is mine. The man runs away as I crawl to the cat. I spit bloody phlem on the ground and curl up with the cat. Did I start the fight? I cannot remember. Did I need it? Did I gain anything from this? Maybe. I pick up the cat and limp home. Maybe he'll be gone in the morning. But what did I gain? Well. There's a thought for my next walk.
While I'm here actually, do comment on what you read into him. I think it would be helpful and certainly pretty interesting.
___________
There was always something magical about the night. I imagine that were I freed of everyday responsibilities I would spend most of my waking hours there. That we should live in daylight I imagine to be a human construct, more suited to convienience of labour than the laughably named human "nature". As if there were anything to be called natural among humans. Ask a man from the past whether those walking the streets today are natural; what do you suppose his answer would be? In such a vain why should it be any more natural to live in day than to live in night?
This is an old argument, but one I have frequently with myself. Often this is followed by an urge to display my "new"found philosophy by throwing open the doors and walking into the night, and wouldn't you know it, this is one of those nights. I pull on my jacket and prepare myself for a stroll.
The air is brisk, as evidenced by my breath appearing before me. I play with it for a bit, make believe I'm smoking and the like. I never could resist that one. I keep in touch with my inner child to an appropriate extent, though usually only when no one is around to judge me as being childish. Usually only on these walks. I move on.
I wonder if anyone else has joined me in this place. I mentioned that the night is magical. I cannot be the only one who realises this. It touches ones muse in a way that daylight does not, cannot. It breeds a form of excitement, no doubt stemming from an instinctive fear of the dark. In the orange twilight of the city night we are brought to face that fear, but at a safe distance. Streetlights hold our fear at bay like the glass standing between you and the lions in the zoo. We are safe to look at it, study it. In my case this means pressing myself up against the glass in the conflicting hopes that it will both hold and that it will break and I will fall through, forced to face that which I would normally keep at a safe distance. I hear a noise in a dark alley.
A mental masochist, that is the phrase I use, most often in jest, to describe myself. I put myself in dangerous or difficult situations not because I'm foolish, or because I'm some sort of adrenalin junkie. Not because I wish to die but because I wish to find out how close I can get to the flame without being burnt. It's a purely scientific thing. A study of the self, in preperation of the event that I am put into a tricky situation not of my own design. The noise in the alley calls me. Not by name, or even on purpose. There is just a noise there that I feel requires my presence.
We are different at night. There is us in the day and us at night. It is a sad fact that most try to combine the two if not ignore one altogether. Our day selves, this is the one we show everyone else, because this is when we are on constant display. This may be a facade, or it may be one's actual self. But it is almost always responsible. The night however...The nightside is more primal. Our eyes look around franticly for...something. We are impulsive and rash, passionate and furious, and as my eyes grow used to the dark, I see a drunk playing with a cat in the same sense that that same cat probably played with a rodent earlier today, in the waking hours. I feel the impulse, the fury. I cry out and he stops.
There is music at night. Sure, the clubs and pubs. But I talk of the city itself. In the day it's noise. Cars, people, everyday goings on. But at night it becomes art, the beating heart of the city slowed to a relaxed throbing. Badum. Badum. Badum. My own heart mimics this heartbeat as the man walks towards me. He shouts some curses and, I imagine insults. He is in front of me now. I cannot hear him, so drunk am I on the night. I will him to hit me.
There is blood. Most of it is mine. The man runs away as I crawl to the cat. I spit bloody phlem on the ground and curl up with the cat. Did I start the fight? I cannot remember. Did I need it? Did I gain anything from this? Maybe. I pick up the cat and limp home. Maybe he'll be gone in the morning. But what did I gain? Well. There's a thought for my next walk.
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