On Loneliness

Night shift is such a lonely time. Solitary confinement. The city sleeps. Loneliness is an evil specter and an old friend. In the way that someone who is suffered indefinitely can become a friend. Solitude grows. It ebbs, and returns like the ocean.

One learns quickly to stop beating on the walls. Shouts are swallowed by the stillness. There is no rescue, just endurance. The endurance of darkness. Sometimes the lamp of Diogenes shines, searching.

The night shifter is marooned. A land of shadows. A land of silence. The slightest noise crashes, a snapped twig clangs and jars. The rest of the world sleeps, oblivious to the magnitude of this sonic disruption.

A hundred thousand night shifters live a hundred thousand isolated lives. Each is the omega, the last human. The retired sailor in the lighthouse. The astronaut, a speck in a vacuum, drifting through stars. A lonely army of guards, observers, vagrants. Each on a still, separate course.

There is the madness of everything and nothing. One wants to run down the middle of the street with an assorted parade of noisemakers. Cymbals, clackers, kazoos. Confetti, cartwheels, the mad jester. The one man pots-and-pans band. The harbinger. The errant fool. Wake up, world! I am here! Hurl open your shutters and see what is the matter. Accost this disturber of the peace, so I can check your pulse as you arrest. Oh, sweet signs of life!

These howls, they are only within. A brief smile swallowed by silence. The bitter, stinging wind of a midnight ocean. The dim embers of abandoned campfire.

Does the world exist for entertainment? Is industry the meaning of life, and boredom is its absence? Have I fulfilled my obligations if I am no longer bored, or am I neglecting a larger duty? Atlas slept. The world yawns; cavernous, gaping, and empty. The army of lonely soldiers watches and waits, until daybreak wraps us in slumber.

The day shifters blink and stretch in the sunlight, unaware of the rotation of the Earth. Unaware that a world sprouted and died overnight, only to be birthed again after dusk. The eternal, dark phoenixes and their secret, nocturnal worlds.

Author's Note

Free writing about being alone on my nights off from work. The only goal here was catharsis. However, the street jester introduced himself to me in this, and I'm looking forward to developing his story instead of mine.

Reviews

[kris reed]

Liked your story, how you describe and set your scene as an external and internal feeling. I had been thinking about Diogenes recently, but had forgot his name, so thanks for reminding me! I'm guessing you reference Greek culture/mythology frequently, which I think is awesome. Keep writing!

[flaneur]

Thanks Kris. I'm obsessed with the fools-with-flaws archetype. Icarus, Sisyphus, Don Quixote et al. Where I currently struggle is developing them into modern day counterparts and writing stories longer than a poem. I just can't nail the faces and scenarios yet. I've always felt like the internal hooks are what drive my writing, so I'm glad you perceived them.