I Could've Walked All Night

After having some very nice photographs taken together, she asked if I wanted to call a cab, since the party was very far in. I declined, and went off on my own after breaking our parting gaze. There’s a certain beauty in walking along dimly lit stretches of road, beneath a thick canopy of black foliage, passing by unusual houses and buildings with unseen occupants and untold stories. There’s a kind of wonder in throwing one’s head back to look at the sky and being stunned by the sight of the immense halo around the moon that you normally can’t see for the streetlights. And there’s a kind of escapism in wandering out to an unfamiliar main road, feeling the emptiness of passing cars, imagining the sterile comfort of the homes in the distance, and breathing in the stinging freshness of the air on a night so clear that you can see for miles.

And there is an unexpected joy in not caring if the wait for a cab lasted another hour; then getting into one and being surprised by how quickly the landscape became swallowed by familiarity, because home was just around the corner.