It was a night like every other night.
The house was dark and sunk in an almost perfect silence. Her husband was not snoring, the fridge was not gurgling, the doors were not squeaking. The only noise following her when she woke up in the warm bed was her faint breathing.
She silently removed the blanket, put her slippers on and went to the living room. She started rolling a cigarette, lit it and went to the windows to open it. As she was smoking her cigarette, watching the city breath from her window, she realized she had become a living cliché. Every night when the silence was conquering her flat, she would wake up and smoke the same cigarettes that were burning her neck, waiting for the morning light to wake up the city. The thought was painful and all her cells were instantly flooded with a feeling of restlessness. She needed to run away in the freezing wind of the winter night.
As she went outside, still in her pajamas, stepping silently on the dirty pavement, she started counting the lights. Maybe that could be a cure for her insomnia. Maybe that would be a cure for her emptiness.
And that is how the game began, just like counting sheep on a blue sunny sky, only this time there was no sun and no blue, only an infinite city with lights that fought against the darkness.
And as she was walking, following the labyrinth of lights painting the deserted streets, all she could find was sickness and pain.
The only things disturbing the sleeping city were the lights from casinos, banks, pharmacies and the local non-stop shops. So she began counting them. On every street and at every corner, the casinos and banks that offer you money, the shops and pharmacies that give you the fuel you need to keep on going to the same banks and the same casinos. It seemed like all the streets were following the same pattern in a city that offered you all the chances to fight against sorrow.
But still, there was no joy, no happiness, no win, no air.
It was a never-ending labyrinth of bright colors and commercials, of promises of wealth and better health, of reassurances that you will always find something to buy, something to spend.
After hours wandering on streets that sold you cures for body and soul diseases, she came back to her quiet house.
Now she knew the city was feeding itself with the hope of people. The hope for money, the hope for food, the hope for prizes, the hope for wealth, the hope for health, the hope for freedom.
But the city had nothing to steal from her. All she had was emptiness, so for once she felt safe in the silence of an infinite night.
