Friday Night Saturday Morning

White clouds pass slowly over a black sky. The air is cooler now, not cold but not hot enough to draw a sweat either. Six floors down on the street cars race frantically up and down the road. Wheels on tarmac. Friday night frantic. The fountain outside the flat was turned off hours ago. A homeless man sleeps on a bench beside it, all his worldly goods packed into a shopping trolley. Our windows are thrown wide open and the shutters are up, the breeze is lovely against my skin. Fresh like is never is in daylight. Crickets. I´m finally yawning with tiredness at 2.30am. I can see the two towers of the Quart in the close distance. Old city gates. And shacks built on the roofs of the buildings opposite with a cluster of TV aerials on top. One star glints in the sky above the orange glow of the city. As I stand at the window to lower the shutters (to avoid morning heat) I see the moon bright in the night sky. Half a moon. Cut exactly in half.

I lay awake listening to the sound of the road. Hopefully it will lull me to sleep. Usually the TV does that. Cars accelerate from the stop lights and just manage a gear change if the following ones are green at the other end of our block. A street washing truck is going down the EMT Taxi lane (taxis are liable to stop in it but I don´t know what it stands for). I know if I went and looked that I could see up and down the Gran Via Ferdinando with its stop/starting traffic held for blocks by traffic lights.