Across the river, where the edges of the city grow tired and fall into each other like wet cement, there is a calmness. A solitude that beckons from amid the city’s dull roar. On the ferry, cruising over the smooth face of the dark waters, I watch great white cylinders pump long spirals of hushed breaths into the sky, welcoming in the coming night, saying goodbye to the dying day. 

My bike presses against my tired knees, my hair dancing with the cool wind, soon the sky will have fallen completely asleep. It was darkening but not enough to become total blackness. It was as though the sky had become the ocean, an endless expanse of tired blue curdling into an inky darkness. Tired….yes, the sky was tired, anyone could see that. 

I am the only passenger who disembarks at the terminal. Cranes stretch out their arms of welded steel overhead, grasping at the swollen heavens. Behind chainlink fences, strobe lights wink on and off, melding into the fluorescent haze. My feet pump the pedals, swirling cool air, coasting slowly along the service road, passing dormant forklifts. A utility truck hums by, its orange lights flashing silently. 

There is a tiredness in me that encases my entire body. My legs are lead, moving without feeling. My head leans sideways, taking in cool air, watching the black radio tower, its red light blinking into the sky. There are no workers, or if there were they have all gone to sleep. It is very quiet and not even the machines make a sound. Round and round my wheels go, spraying sweet slipstream on the perfectly flat loading zones. I crane my head back, letting my body relax, letting the air take me away. 

Poins avenue is quiet as well, desolate. It is darker with the harsh mercury blue of the industrial zone fading away. There is no sidewalk and I bike in the middle of the asphalt, one hand loosely on the brake, the other nowhere in particular. Light bathes me, flashing brighter and then dimmer. The headlights of trash trucks, trundling from the city, going home to the landfills. I gently angle my body, swerving out of the way, letting them pass. Like a caravan, they form up beside me, moving bodies of light in the dark. They spit exhaust, workers hanging on to their backs, pinpricks of lit cigarettes scattering sparks in the night. I raise one hand in some form of greeting and they answer back, nodding as they pass. Driving away together, cigarette butts falling in their growling wake. They dwindle down the road, disappearing forever.

Soon the light rail tracks begin as Poins bends with the river cutting through an old residential neighborhood long since gone to waste. I glide under the eroding edifice, rattling with every bump, my gear banging out a discordant chorus. I ache all over but I am almost there. Above me, a train roars onward, streaking green light, carrying itself around the bend, screeching speed.    

Old white houses from before the redevelopment line the sides of the road. Little one-floor homes with little mailboxes that have no letters. No one will ever be coming home up their little white steps.

Turning with the tracks I pump harder, nearing the end. Faster…faster…..yes a little faster… Spokes become blurs and the wind starts to scream. Andrelinine sings in my ears… Faster…c’mon….come on… 

Standing up I let the air pummel me, licking tears dropping from my eyes. Woooo, there I go, flying over a bump, crunching gravel, smelting it into burning bits. 

My feet have stopped moving. The scenery is soaring by, my hands clutch the trembling handling bars, there is no need for the brakes. Ahhh there I go again, down, up and down again, smashing old bottles, destroying a paper bag with nothing left inside. 

One last turn and then the final stretch. Old droplets from rain storms weeks gone by weep from the track’s black girders, dripping wordless goodbyes. Gradually, the tires slow and I drift along the avenue, sailing across the cement sea. Gingerly, my legs lower until they skim the ground, kicking up torque, dragging the bike to a shaky halt. 

And there it is, tucked away next to the light rail’s graffitied elevator, a few feet from the flickering light of the stairs. ‘Under the Tracks’ the tavern’s sign says in carved wood. 

I lean in and open the swinging doors. At last. The air is thick with smoke and the room is full of low conversation. Men sit hunched at wooden tables, empty bottles crowding around them, beige coats resting on hooks. They drink alone, staring at no one, smoke dancing from partially opened mouths. The bartender, perpetually looking down, wipes the bar top absentmindedly, whistling a tune no one has heard of. His hair is thinning and his eyes are looking at some time other than the present. Every now and then, he smiles sadly and murmurs, “yeah…yeah…”

Behind him, taped to the wood-paneled wall are dozens of bills stamped sterling by the insignias of extinct banana republics. Reluctantly, he pours me a beer, the rag slung over his shoulder. The other day I went to a place where they served me petrol fresh from the gulf that burned my throat and some idiot on the T.V tried to sell me a car I didn’t want. It is good to be back. I take a long sip, slurping up the bubbling foam, feeling the warmth spread through my tired body. My legs dangle and stretch from atop the stool easing away all the soreness, all the pain, melting it away…

The men drinking are mainly day laborers coming here after twelve-hour shifts. They take a shuttle across the bridge and walk a kilometer or so down the avenue until they hit the bar. There is an all-encompassing exhaustion to them, a bone-crushing weariness that pervades every fiber of their being. They move slowly, mired in inertia, reaching with agonizing sluggishness for a glass of beer, much of it spilling on their beards. Their beards are tired as well, faded and sinking into themselves. 

I order the same bread I got last time and go sit at a table. On the roughly hewn wood slab adjacent to me, men play a game of cards. Splinters jut out of the chairs and spilled alcohol from years and years coats them in a sticky glaze. They play without speaking, nodding, grunting, and the constant flood of flowing cards, dancing from player to player like a benign cold.

Next to me is the Lieutenant who had been in a guerilla unit in the last war. He takes a puff of his pipe talking through a cloud of smoke, talking of the war. 

He was on patrol with royalist irregulars in the hill country way past the armistice line. Night had fallen and the planets were strewn across the starry sky like colored beacons. The irregulars were spread apart over the heaving marigold sea, its golden shine dulled by the impenetrable dark. Tracer fire from minesweepers far off lit up the sky green for a moment as though they were shooting stars. Under the green glow, they fell into crouches, a rustling sound approaching. River Bears, a pack of them, bounded into view, loping up the hill. Their thick fur snow white against the blackness of the night. He had never seen one before in his life. He assumed they were driven from their home, looking for a river in the forest. Not a word was spoken between the men as the pack reached the hill’s grassy summit. The bears stood there for a moment among the buzzing fireflies, their snouts pointed upward, at the glowing canopy. One of their heads exploded. And another. Their bodies jerking like hanged men, blood dyeing their white fur red. 

White muzzle flashes twinkled in the distance. Partisan snipers out of sight, crouched across the hills, squeezing hot lead into the cool air. Picking off the bears one by one. The Lieutenant sat there unmoving amid the swaying marigolds, watching them turn red, watching the last bear break for the trees, its short legs windmilling desperately. A white streak in the lonely hills. For the briefest of seconds, it seemed as though it would make it and then it was gone. The sniper rifles crackling goodbye from somewhere unseen. The bear let out a little moan and then it was silent, everything was, the flashes stopped and it was like they had never been there before. Above the hills, the dangling orbs still stared impassively downwards, the stars still glittered, the irregulars lit cigarettes, and all over the marigold sea, dead River Bears were crying tears of blood.

The Lieutenant takes another puff of his pipe, the smoke billowing outwards. His expression is unchanged but in his eyes, something is different somehow. I take a bite of the bread, savoring its thick warm texture, enjoying the crust crumbling in my mouth. But all throughout the eating, plaguing my mind were the dead bears, white and motionless on the dark ground. I had never seen one before the extinction and I felt drained…wiped…

Several card games are won and lost next to me. I did not notice much. The people change positions but one man stays the same. He is tall with a pipe in one hand and is wearing a faded uniform I don’t recognize. He laughs at random and shakes his head at the foolishness of the players but he never deigns to sit and join them. Somewhere else, a retired merchant marine with a faded nautical cap rolls stone dice, over and over again…     

 The flood of familiar faces and recurring cross-talk gradually lulls me into a content reverie. Glasses are emptied and poured, more bread is eaten, and someone sings a song I vaguely remember. It is all growing hazy. The workers begin to leave. Pulling their beige coats from the hooks, dropping crumpled bills on the wet tables. The rumbling of the light rail calls to them, summoning them back to the city.

Eventually, even the Lieutenant leaves and I am nearly alone, chewing on the last bits of a charred crust. The bartender wipes his dirty rag over the tables, shaking the last few sleeping denizens awake, pocketing the crumpled bills. He approaches me and I look up. Hesitantly, he swings the rag across the surface, doing nothing in the way of cleanliness. We make eye contact and he smiles sadly again. I do not seem to see his mouth move but words come out just the same. “That’s life…that’s just life…”

I nod, he is right after all. I pay in a mix of coins and take one last look before exiting. The light is dim over the granular yellow tables and everyone is gone. They have all left for home.  

The sky is no longer tired, it has gone completely to sleep. It is all black, stretching without a star as far as I can see. I begin to pedal, more than a little buzzed, weaving lazily through the empty avenue. Trains shake the tracks from overhead bidding me farewell. 

My turns are wide and sloppy, reflexes comfortably faded away. There is not one car on the road and I coast through the traffic lights, retracing my journey. The industrial zone nears, its white light unflinching in the pit of the night. Cool air whispers at my back beckoning me onwards. 

The forklifts remain dormant, the service road flat and clear. On the radio tower, a red light still signals to someone, somewhere. 

I board the last ferry heading back at the silent terminal. I sit outside, feeling the breeze, watching the river rush against itself, swathes of floodlights reflecting in its murky depths. All throughout the river, freighters the size of fallen buildings tower over me, their great hulks draping the world in shadow. Hundreds of lights glimmer faintly on them. They too are tired, they too wish for sleep.

I realized then that the night would never end. And that the sky would not be waking up ever again. The ferry gave out a call and a freighter answered it, crying mournfully and then another blared a horn, and then another, and all across the endless night, the ships were going home.