I wrote this odd, somewhat uneven vignette about ten years ago, after I returned to California from my single fateful semester at college. I really did leave campus once and go walking through town in the middle of the night, and I really did hear music playing outside a bagel shop. I can't remember what song it was, and I can't remember if I danced on the sidewalk or not. I do remember that I wanted to. This short piece was an attempt to capture the mood of that night.
One night, unable to sleep and a bit restless, they slipped outside for a walk, she in a white silk nightgown and he in light blue cotton pajamas. The moon was full. The night was warm, and the air seemed heavy with the aromas of flowers. They did not speak as they walked west on Central Street; there was no need.
They almost failed to notice that music was playing outside the little bagel shop they had always meant to try sometime. They almost walked on past it without a pause, but he noticed the music suddenly and halted. "Why . . ." she began, but then she became aware of the music and no longer needed to ask why he had stopped. It was a song that had been very popular about six months earlier, and it was playing in front of this bagel shop on Central Street at three o'clock in the morning.
Whether it was he who reached for her first, or she who made the first move into his arms, no one could say, but they leaned into each other and began to dance. The comfort of knowing they would not be seen on the deserted street, flavored by the strangeness and daring of dancing in a public place, made them bold. A strange sort of self-consciousness swept over them: not an awareness of how they would appear to others, but a lucid awareness of their own bodies, their own thoughts. At once creating the dance and possessed by it, they followed the subtle hints of each other's bodies, sliding perfectly from one move to the next. He held her close, held her out while she twirled, lifted her into his arms and spun in a rapid circle while she threw her head back and let the perfumed air sweep like a cool breeze across her face.
Finally he put her down and they clung to each other dizzily, laughing at the absurdity of hearing music playing on these empty streets at this hour. They laughed long and hard, until at about the same time both of them realized how mirthless their laughter was, and they fell silent.
She spoke first. "You know, it's not - it's not really that funny."
"No," he agreed, and for a moment they were silent again.
"I mean - music was meant to be heard, right? And yet here's this music playing under the wide night sky in front of all these closed stores, with no one around to hear it. Except for us, I mean, and there's no reason at all why we should be here either. Any other night we would be at home, in bed, asleep, and then the music would be playing out here without anyone to hear it at all." She sat on the curb, and he sat beside her.
Suddenly he noticed tears glistening on her face in the moonlight. "Why are you crying?" he asked.
"I'm just thinking about that music playing alone at night with no one around to hear it, being what it was meant to be without doing what it was meant to do. It's such a lonely thought."
"It's strange," he murmured, turning his head away. She put her head on his shoulder but he continued to face the other direction. "We and that music justify each other somehow. Ordinarily we would be in bed, but then there would be no one to listen to the music. And it's senseless for the music to play if there's no one around to hear it, but we're here. That music's not really playing for us, and we didn't come here to listen to it, but it fits somehow."
He turned back to her. "You're crying now too," she noticed, and they embraced each other.
"I wonder why we were laughing," he said.
"I was wondering that too," she replied. "Maybe it's because we were trying to hide from what we're feeling now, because we didn't want to feel this - this -"
"Desolation," he supplied.
"Yes, that's it. Desolation." The heaviness of the fragrances in the air began to seem oppressive as they sat together on the curb, leaning into each other, comforting and being comforted in equal measure. They remained there a long time. When they finally rose, they continued west, even though the sun rises in the east.
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