City Lights

Photo by Paul Blenkhorn on Unsplash

The smell of snow is in the air. It’s early December. And downtown is colder than I remember. I’m wandering the streets aimlessly under the safety of the bright city lights.

I’m just out of college. Working in center city with my best friend for a corporation I don’t really understand. The complex is massive, as they all are. Floor after floor of fluorescent lighting and gray carpet and cubicles. Our building houses multiple companies, the biggest being a law firm. I work in the basement, and that feels right.

Thursday night and the city is empty. Almost like the cold has made everyone magically disappear. Whether they raced home or were chased indoors, I can not say. All I know is, they are no longer there. But their presence is. And the silent night is haunted by the ghosts of their collected breaths, which seem to linger in the air like mist.

I’m walking across the city to see a friend who lives near the art museum, and it feels comforting to be surrounded by such tall buildings on such a cold night. The lights spill out from windows. The reds and greens and yellows reflect off the black asphalt, creating a tapestry of designs.

People are scarce, but even though the streets are practically deserted, the city feels alive. The chill in the air isn’t a fearful one. And I don’t feel alone or scared, but excited.

Quiet. All around. But it’s the good kind of quiet. The kind where it heightens other senses. Where you can actually begin to smell the minerals in the concrete. Where you begin to notice for the first time that the cracks in the stucco building across the street actually intersect to form a flower. Or that the car parked illegally at the corner is fogged up and that there is a heart with the initials C+J sketched across a passenger-side window.

There’s a buzz in the air that only comes from the kind of silence that helps you to actually feel more alive, and I’m suddenly excited for my walk in the cold.

There’s a person up ahead on 17th coming toward me. I know the right thing to do would be to wave and say hi, but I’m feeling selfish, and I want to see how far I can sink into this bubble of quiet I’ve made for myself. I cross the street without so much as a glance as I make my way toward the art museum.

The flags along the parkway are blowing, and now the quiet is truly disrupted for the first time. I’m tempted to take out my headphones, to give myself a little soundtrack to the night. But I stop myself. I want to see how long I can make it before I need to shut it all out.

I’m startled by the brightness of the flags. By how all the colors seem to be represented, but also by how many flags bear the same combination. And I’m reminded that there is not an endless amount of variety in the world. That everything repeats eventually. And again, I’m comforted by that. It reminds me that I’ve never been alone. That I’ll never actually be alone.

Up ahead, is Logan Square. I can see the fountain. The green statues reclining, the swans shooting imaginary water from their mouths. It’s somehow colder here on the parkway, and I can almost sense the snow coming.

A flake. Just one at first. Then, another. Suddenly, it’s coming down all around me. And, the statues are glowing, and the snow is landing in the empty pool beneath the fountain where there should be water.

And I can almost hear the music playing. A soft violin at first, so quiet that it’s barely there. The light touch of bow on string. Delicate notes dancing to the falling snow. Then, the long swell as the snow pours down.

I look around, and cars are speeding along the parkway as the music crescendos. I stand there for a minute, alone in Logan Square. And the snow slows. And I wait for the music to stop. Then, I pass the fountain and continue the journey to my friend’s feeling simultaneously crushed and elated in knowing that I’ll never experience that exact moment ever again.

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