Lonely walks at dusk
The autumn days are crisp , the nights sharp. The days don’t linger slipping quietly and suddenly into dark . Autumn nights are silent, the warm summer breeze having ceased but not yet replaced by the cold winter drafts.
When I step out in a brisk walk, crossing the traffic lights at intersections small and big and step over into the walking path by the sea, a new world seems to take shape. It’s a world which passes silent abandoned parks, locked schools and deserted bus stops.
The world is lonely for the people working remotely, hunched over their computers, toggling unseen conversations and a faint whiff of boredom. Interactions are sometimes visual but mostly invisible. A static, screeching screen sometimes the only companion for the day.
The world outside is lonelier, the companions are rare and distant. The travails of the day have removed all desire for social niceties. Human interaction is a burden , replaced by a silent and dark lack of interest. Steady and disinterested eyes, facing the ground or the dark above.
Physical exercise is a lonely companion. The limits of endurance , highly individual, drive even those who are the closest away. The pounding feet, then distant now close and then overtaking, are solo hunters. The runner in groups, possibly training for an event, along with their navigators, carrying water and hope are absent.
The figures flitting past are blurred, occasionally illuminated by their phones or lights stuck to their arms. Some run silently their breathing controlled, others exploding very few seconds. There is no shame in running in the dark, no judgement on anyone’s ability, the forms are too dark to be revealed.
The distant city lights reveal a different word, it’s the world of people who still seek other people. It is also the world of crowded trains, buses, cars and scurrying feet, a world of people escaping other people.
The sports cycle which swishes past silently probably heads to this other world or maybe an even farther one, the rear lights blinking into oblivion. A few fishermen and women stand by the water, bare silhouettes visible from far, occasionally interrupted by the flickering torchlight of a walker by the shore .
The Ferris wheel still shines bright, changing colours, a nocturnal chameleon. The day is ending for the wheel too, the rotations will slow down, the lights stop flickering and turn dim. But the world seen from the wheel is turning brighter. What burns out on the wheel , burns bright in another part of the city.
Them there is the golf driving range, coming alive at dark , bright blinding lights drowning out all that surrounds it. It entices the lonely traveler walking home from the train station. Lonely in a crowd is sometimes preferable to a mind numbing loneliness for some.
The high school baseball team is finishing its trainings, the customary chants flowing in waves. A few athletes are pushing the roller over the field, preparing the ground for another day. The lights inside the school are still on, the bridge allowing a view of an empty hallway illuminated around the edges.
The bridge descends over a stream, the rare stragglers sitting around the benches talking in loud tones to beat the cold. The apartments in front of stream, with their lights shining through the curtains ready to welcome its occupants back. The odd apartment in exhibitionist defiance , the curtains open offering tungsten hallowed views of the orderly room inside.
The path towards my house crosses dark and deserted parks, the cicadas of summer are dead and the only sound is rustle of clothes or the sound of a passing car.
The night hides the burst of autumn colours, the crisp and cold morning will reveal the palletes, yellow to rust to shades of red. The world outside the flash of colours oscillates between despair and hope.
The despair of spring, disappointment of summer and the dread of autumn turns into the hope of winter. The hope of a vaccine, a shield against the invisible disease, an end to an enforced loneliness makes the change of seasons something to look forward to.
When the trees turn bare, stripped of colour, the fallen leaves swept away, through bone-chilling days and bleak freezing nights, hope still remains.
Because hope dies last.
