"After the Last Train"
After the Last Train - Lyle H Saxon
After the last train, if you're wealthy and/or the company you work for will pay for it, you take a taxi home.  If you're wondering how you're going to pay next month's rent, then you walk (if your abode is within walking distance that is).  Last Friday, I had just such an experience, and found myself walking down this road in the middle of a cold and windy night.
     Times like this, the fundamental difference between cities and the natural world are striking.  Aside from worrying about "things in the night" in the natural world, you have the stars and moon above (there was a bright moon on Friday, but the street lights mainly obliterated its light), the sound of the wind in the trees, and the sounds of insects and other life about you.
     In the city, on the other hand, while the peopled daytime provides all the companionship humanity can offer, the middle of the night on asphalt and between concrete buildings, with a lifeless and bone-chillingly cold wind blowing, is a forlorn world.  What is good about it, is that when you get home, the inside of your apartment seems like paradise - (relatively) warm, no wind, no cars....

Copyright 2005 - by Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon, Images Through Glass, Tokyo