Shadows and Ice

A gentle breeze passes down the street. The city’s yawn commences as it awakens to the night. Cars glide down the street, lights flicker on, and the sun runs away. Past the horizon. The darkness begins to creep over the buildings, down the sidewalks, and across the lanes; as the streets, the blocks, and the city breathes.
         Minutes fade into the darkness and the city is now anxious and aware. People begin to trickle out of their vehicles and into their gilded pleasure plazas. The darkness is dominant and the shadows canter along with the peoples in lurid fashion. A layer of ice inches into the city in the way that death inches throughout a corpse.  As the time runs away; the darkness, the shadows and the people begin to compact themselves into the kindled burg. Every once in a while the illuminated buildings will spit out the shadows and the peoples into the darkness. But never all peoples, just the ones who have been rendered mute, lame, and powerless by the atmosphere. They often recede away from the city in twos, sticking together but devoting themselves to a foreign body.
         Gradually the ice moves inward. Lights flash. Violets, scarlets, blues, yellows, and greens parade around the plaza walls. Drinks pour. Glasses rattle. Bodies shake in tempo with the city. Shadows seduce the doubting patron. Shadows dim the glare of the dancing lights. And slowly the city begins to sway beneath its glacial covering.
         It’s later now. And the ice slides along and creeps into the hearts of the people as they pulsate within their city. The people claim the city as their own, but it is the city itself that holds ownership. At 3a.m. the hearts of the people freeze while the night holds the people tightly in its constrictive embrace. All that can now be seen, inside and out, is shadows. Shadows and ice.