It's 5:00am, and I have long since dismissed the prospect of sleep. For two hours now I have lain here trying to achieve silence and stillness in a city that is the antithesis of both. It is not only the noises - the fire trucks and police cars who not only employ what is surely the world's most obnoxious-sounding siren, but also insist on honking their horns to really drive home their point; the car alarms and the garbage trucks; the groups of drunken frat boys revelling in the win, a few hours ago, of the New York Giants in the quarter finals of the football playoffs; the distant screams and grunts and cries and laughter; the bangs and shakes and hissing of the radiators; the low hum of the televisions and refrigerators - which amount to no less than a cacophony, but also the... energy... which keeps me awake. It is no over-exaggeration to say that there is something akin to a kind of electricity - a "buzz" for want of a better word - which runs constantly through this city, keeping its inhabitants warm and energized and concordant in the belief that they are young and indestructible and able to have the world whatever way they want it. This energy is both a product of and an essential pre-condition to life at the centre of the world. It is present in every part of New York, it is what inspires her thinkers and artists, what motivates her scammers and entrepreneurs, what sustains her dreamers and idealists. It is one of the many beautiful, unique things about this city of cities.
It is also highly likely to be the cause off my inevitably slow, painful death by sleep deprivation.
No comments:
Post a Comment