Lyrics:

“I too was without luminaries,
Until I uncovered the credo only nighthawks know:
They will care for you unimaginably,
Throw you into a fire to dry you off,
Insist on involving teeth with a kiss,
Seal the exit to utopia, planned obsolescence of external worlds,
And peering through the keyhole of the mahogany door,
The lights brought up, you are met by bodies so thin,
That the skin hardly hides the networks of bone.
 
The only place where the aperture is wide enough
To accommodate all,
Is the antithesis of where you now find yourself.
You mustn’t take the job. It would see covertly spent, overtly—it doesn’t matter to them.
There’s been quite the shift from daylight to twilight robbery—”

Abruptly, my recitation was interrupted by the unimpressed listener.
They said, “Don’t you think I haven’t already picked up on any of that? I’ve heard this all before, Aesop.”

I sat there in silence, unaccustomed to such scepticism from my nightly audience and unsure of how to reply.

They continued, “You know, the funny thing is, for having memorised those words, you clearly haven’t thought about them a great deal. I wish I could opt out. My family wishes it too.” After slipping on their coat, they filed through their wallet and produced the payment for both of our meals by the register. As they looked down at the treacly tessellation of waffles on my plate, the squares of batter alternatively filled with whipped cream and syrup, they made their last comment, “It must be nice having the time to do that. It really must.” They then left, an unseasonable chill sneaking in through the door before it creaked shut.

Through the modest stained glass of my gastronomic temple, perched on my usual stool at the counter, I contemplated the despondent soul continue down the sidewalk, at one point stopping to collect paper strips from lamppost advertisements in the ivory tusks cast by the streetlights. Their form slowly melted into the eggplant tint of early morning, the vanishing twin more tangible than its counterpart, who was still entangled in nature’s vines, a rhapsode passing off as progenitor. Against the premature light of that day’s dawn, the industrial dunes, the stockpiles of the port, appeared as an impassable mountain range.