A Night Walk with No Destination

Photo: Unsplash.

I went outside at eleven because the room had become too small for the problem I was thinking about.

There was no destination. I turned wherever the traffic light was green.

At night, the neighborhood operated a second shift. A bakery vented warm air into an empty alley. Two taxi drivers played chess on a phone balanced across the hood of a car. Someone watered plants on a fourth-floor balcony while wearing a motorcycle helmet.

I passed a laundromat where one red sock traveled alone around a dryer. A handwritten sign on the door said LAST WASH 11:30, then added beneath it, unless the machine is already emotionally committed.

Near the river, a man was teaching his dog not to fear a bronze statue. The dog distrusted art. We stood beside it for several minutes, offering encouragement. Eventually the dog sniffed the statue, decided civilization could continue, and accepted a biscuit.

By the time I returned, I had walked six kilometers and solved none of my original problem. It was still waiting on the desk with the same difficult shape.

But the room was larger again. Sometimes a problem does not need an answer at midnight. It only needs you to stop staring at it until morning.