m o t i o n l e s s
m o t i o n l se s
m o t i o n sle s
m o t i osn l e s
m o t i so n l e s
m o t si o n l e s
m ost i o n l e s
m so t i o n l e s sm o t i o n l e s s om t i o n l e s s o m t i no l e s s o m t ni o l e s s o m nt i o l e s s o m n t oi l e s s o m n oti l e s s o m n o t lie s s o m n o lt i e s s o m n o l it e s
Two nights later, as he was getting ready to bed down, the boy looked for the star they followed every night. He thought that the horizon was a bit lower than it had been, because he seemed to see stars on the desert itself.
"It's the oasis," said the camel driver.
"Well, why don't we go there right now?" the boy asked.
The nocturnal sound is a reminder of human solitude and mortality, and it makes one conscious of the entire slumbering city. Anyone who has become entranced by the sound of dripping water in the darkness of a ruin can attest to the extraordinary capacity of the ear to carve a volume into the void of darkness. The space traced by the ear in the darkness becomes a cavity sculpted directly in the interior of the mind.
Yes, it was the hour when, a long time ago, I was perfectly content. What awaited me back then was always a night of easy, dreamless sleep. And yet something had changed, since it was back to my cell that I went to wait for the next day…as if familiar paths traced in summer skies could lead as easily to prison as to the sleep of the innocent.
You can’t make people use streets they have no reason to use. You can’t make people watch streets they do not want to watch. Safety on the streets by surveillance and mutual policing of one another sounds grim, but in real life it is not grim. The safety of the street works best, most casually, and with least frequent taint of hostility or suspicion precisely where people are using and most enjoying the city streets voluntarily and are least conscious, normally, that they are policing.