Night Tour

Then there is the night with its backstreets of characters, masked, intractable, unwilling to leave the comfort of their lifelong haunts. They call out then turn away in fear of being known. And below, the corridors of the underground winding through sleepless hours, the constant echo of footsteps and voices punctured by announcements of departures to nameless places. Images cast on grimey walls passing in haste, doors slamed shut. Nothing sutures together, consciousness becomes fragments glimpsed on screens, splintered sounds, words finding no meaning. And having brought you here what can I offer you but the pricked chill of an anesthetic being eased into a vein, the oblivion of dreamless sleep, then daybreak bleeding through the stuck lid of an eye, the first thin incision of hope.