The Never-Ending Night

It’s called the never-ending night for a reason. The skies are pitched, and the moon, faded behind. Beneath that, skyscrapers try their best to splice through the blackness, become part of it, a friend.

In the heights, the suicidal hang over the edges, considering if plunging is all the euphoria it’s said to be. The mist of the clouds molests them, and the wind eventually nudges them over. And yes, it ends up being as rapturous as they said it’d be.

On neighbouring skylines, the filthily affluent wait for their obnoxious choppers; a business trip is in the works, but we all know one never truly leaves this city.

Below that, the second-highest work under man, think they’re a success story in themselves – CEO’S, Regional Managers - but are merely as slave-injected as the labourers who’ve built this very brick capital.

Now, the cleaners clean after hours, the foreign and the women. It’s not a hard job in these buildings, just take-out coffee cups in the bins and the odd splurge-bested condoms in the bosses.

We venture outside, and as soon as we do, chaos digests us. The sound is motorised and buried, cabs and motorcycles waiting or weaving in traffic. The smell is independently fumes and street food, the onyx of time hindered by giant screens, depicting products and pop-stars and superheroes and electoral campaigns.

Within the alleyways roving off the main streets, are the crime hungry. Skinheads and balaclava boys carry baseball bats and machetes, perhaps even guns. They taunt and rob and jeer. Sometimes murder, depending on what they’ve taken and the numeral deindividuation within the mob. They wear black puffer jackets to protect themselves from the bitter freeze which is impeding Halloween, and smoke peppery cigarettes to warm them and their acidic throats.

Now we’re at the buildings that seem like obsolete warehouses, but have a dangerous thump trying to escape their thick and entombed walls. Big bodyguards remain at the metallic doors, spitting at the stupid youth who try and nodding at the suited elite, who hold skimp-wearing on each arm. Inside is an inferno of red and rich. Paper money flies and flitters, serenading the sweethearts who wrap around the cold poles like snakes. Every tabletop is cluttered with a starched, white powder, that gets sucked up by bills into men called Bill, who have billions. There are the mask manipulators, wig wearers, and the lingerie launderers. Inside crevasses and curtained nooks, are mouths on body parts and men out of their minds. Long nails trace the loosened ties and impromptu bulges. The sonic is only of voluptuous booms which vibrate and cascade through all palpability and soul. It never ends and never sees the light.

Now we go upstairs to the real lords of dog town. They manage the topless and meander the drug market, wearing Rolexes and pinkie rings. They laugh and play cards in the cigar-enriched troposphere. The prowling naked serve sour substance on the rocks, and the occasional sweet-nothing in the ear. The glass and maroon interior compliments the sardonic sneers, comforts the visibility that is so deeply furtive at the same time.

We’re outside again, now delving further into the dark and desolate to find the master planners and villainous inside abandoned carparks and subways. These are the sadists of insanity, wearing bleeding makeup and conducting enigmas to confuse and play the heroes who wait. They code and decode and hack and produce bombs. They might cut off a finger or two from the inept, or hold hostage and torture a trophy damsel of their enemies, hold a gun to her gob-gagged head and tear away her clothes whilst live streaming it. They have masterplans that they’ve been conceiving since the birth of their social injustice, in the orphanage or single-parented one-by-one apartment. It’s made them sociopaths, hysterically sniggering with their stretched mouths and hideously wide eyes, before turning to complete, placid vengeance. They have their followers around them, have built a team of misunderstood and outcasted.

The sewers flood with king rats, sadly entangled by nude tails, and shitting on each other until they die because of it. Seldom, a deranged clown mutters through the echoes, plods through the shallow, dank water until they find the mutated alligator who was once human. Still, the sound of vigorous beats tempt the tunnels, most not knowing where it comes from.

But the very select do. They wear spiked hair and black clothing, never a true face shown, enveloped by mask or face paint. Although the most underground, there are no orgies and money as one would think. That’s left to the hidden, elitist clubs above, remember? These cavities beneath the concrete jungle are riddled with fang filleted folk; vampires and werewolves and flesh form demons. They aren’t human, so dancing in trance all night never tires them. The flashing of white and red light makes for a crowd of stop motion creatures, some hankering into innocent, recently compelled necks and others howling nefariously at the full moon they’ve been sheltered away from. The music blasting is nonstop plonks and writhing rhythms, all made electronically to unleash pure, savoury unrelent.

It’s called the never-ending night for a reason. Because the day is brimming with zombies who crave the unpleasant and taboo festivities that only materialize when the sun has stopped its surveillance. More happens then, anything happens then. Murder that cannot be witnessed, sex that cannot be counted as adultery, suicides that cannot be cared about, crimes that cannot be committed, hostages that cannot be noticed as kidnapped, psychos who cannot escape their prison cells or asylums. It's where all want to be, even if you say you don’t, even if you’re a model citizen, parent, boss, employee, nobody. It's where everyone can find their home, the real thirsty reason for their existence. The real seven sins that rumble inside of us all.