Having left the small alley, I ventured out into the furious main-street.

The thick London traffic roared like a waterfall, the sound at least as impressive, the sight somewhat less appealing to the eye. The grey buildings towered to the sky, as if they had participated in an unnamed competition. A multitude of different colours, designs and vintages raced for the seductive prize of Home, while a few brave pedestrians, bold and foolish, tried to pass between the rare holes that were left between the heavy metal bugs, as if their lives depended on getting to that remote other side.

The concrete giants that loomed over their walkers-by were filled with small shops and huge stores, all offering the right clothes, the right shoes, the right tattoos and the right food for the right price.

I felt free in these streets, no matter where they were. The forced loneliness of the wilderness never attracted me, as it had so many others from my Scandinavian home. Instead I rejoiced in the gloriously varied monotony of the Urban Jungle. How wise the man who invented the name! How like a jungle are these streets, where birds of every kind could sing and dance as they wished. I could see those strange jungle-birds, those with black bodies, strange objects in their beaks and strange coloured feathers on their heads.

I could see green vultures, black vultures, all with strong and hard feet, needed to rend the helpless corpse apart. I could see so many different birds, so many different beasts in these streets...

I wandered on in some direction, drifting obliviously through the thickness of human hearts and human flesh, smelling a thousand human smells, many artificial, some natural. The smell of eastern dishes passed me by, and although I couldn’t see its face, its presence was as clear as a summer’s rain.

I passed by a hidden palace, a building of a thousand dreams, where the strangest birds of all performed their endless ritual. They dressed and undressed, then dressed again, never the same person twice. And yet these faceless puppets were loved by all, raised to the skies by those set to judge them, worshipped by those who could afford to watch them play.

And then, only steps away, I passed by a restaurant. The Hundred Seats or more could have been a thousand, and yet there would always be people stranded outside, yearning to a place to sit. And just a few steps further, a more elegant place with far less seats (as if the lack of place would automatically mean class) hosted those that would never dream of entering their dining-neighbours. From the first, music streamed like a Siren’s song, from the other, a tune slipped out, spreading disquietude, warning those off who could never feel at ease among the Chateau-Briands and Bordeaux wines.

This was the condition of the streets. And this was why the people who loved the streets would always be those that could never afford to ever fully live in them.

I could understand those who collected safety as old men collected stamps; but the safer you seemed, the more you became the victim of the streets. This was the paradox of the city; for the streets could be dangerous places.

I looked down through a hole in the streets, and humans welled in and out of them like cockroaches in some old horror movie. Their determined steps led them away from the lands of Hades, or as often to them. But Hades had made a deal with machine and man, and they would return from their sojourn, safer than ever Orpheus could, longing for his Eurydice.

This too was a part of the city.

I strolled along, watching and waiting for the moment when the heavens would grow infected and slowly die away, and the imperfect stars, who never seemed to satisfy man’s desire for light, would be closed out and replaced by a stronger light, a better light, one that obeyed man’s commands, instead of those of a distant God. These moments of transition were still far away, yet the city, ever jealous of the sky, let the shining, pearly greens and reds and blues and whites and violets and a million other colours embrighten the steps of man, and none pacing through the heart of the city could ever see the lonely, abandoned stars gloomingly envy mankind.

This was my town. This was every town. For where was the end of one place and started another? In ancient days the borders were clear, but in a time when Hades’s Subways could as easily take you from one end of the city to the other as the metal clouds could invade God’s own territory, notionlessly taking you from Berlin to Barcelona, from Stockholm to San Diego, did these borders matter? Wasn’t Stockholm and Berlin just two satellite cities, among a thousand shining satellites, eternally involved in an intricate dance? And were then not all cities really one, each being a suburb, each a centre?

My thoughts carried me as heavily as the wind, and the majestic colours of the darkening sky, the sun long set, shone like a deep purple fire over the restless city.

Afar I could hear the sounds of the ancient orgies, and in my mind I could see the ancient ceasars toast with the modern hedonists, singing, drinking and breathing in the same atmosphere. The unhidden shapes of beautiful and well-formed young women passed me by, seducing me with their very smell, their bodies dancing before they had even arrived to their destinations. Young men, so like the young roosters trying to show their manliness, their dominance. A Spanish flamenco-dancer could hardly have done it better...

But as the people changed and the colours changed, so changed too the houses. The grey giants became light-houses, radiating warmth and light far outside their limited domains, making the very rock feel alive and full of spirit.

Even the metal bugs changed: The ordinary, glamourless ones had long gone to sleep, their nightly cousins taking their place. Now old pink bugs, many without a shield to protect their soft, leathery backs, roamed the wilderness. They hunted their prey with the elegance of a condor. And most often, the prey itself was willing for the hot, pulsating ritual of life and death.

I could not help but to feel heady with the pulse of the night, so much more alive and ecstatic, so much more heedless and desperate than that of the steady, boring day.

My feet left me just as heedless, walking through crowds of people waiting to enter the throbbing orgies that lured within those shining gates. The moths dressed up for death, and therefore, for rebirth. Again and again these crowds, always different, always the same, hindered my way, injecting the pleasure of the faceless, yet unique masses that watched me pass them by. Oh how they filled me with life!

Oh how they filled me with lust!

The streets became more quite, and I was tired after making love to a million souls. The narrow alleys became darker, as my eyelids became heavier. The far away rhythm, the silent, dozed lights, the smell of life and concrete rocked me to my sleep.