One must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star – Nietzsche

It's late and I'm tired. Though it's a mere five-minute-walk to my bed, my feet seem reluctant to take me. So I stay put.

I lean forward to rest my chin on the bannister and watch the citylights reflect on the canal. My head is buzzing. I'm too tired to distinguish the different thoughts that hammer away at me from the inside, but I suddenly feel very lonely. I jump up and down to shake it off like a cold.

I wish I knew where to start. A simple lead. But all I can see is cobwebs. A tangled mess of thoughts and ideas, of things in the making. Not quite materialised.

I wish I had the guts to stop talking so much during the day.
To stop overshouting my thinking.
The quiet of night like an amplifier in retaliation.

My eye catches a ripple on the water's edge and follows it to the source. In the middle of this bustling city, an out-of-place heron strides across the shallowness of the canal, majestically tilting its head from left to right in its search for food. It makes me feel inexplicably sad.


It's never been simple. Whatever image the world may project onto me, it's a grotesquely blurred portrayal. When the sun's bright glare is traded for a moonlight trickle, the projection comes into focus and reveals its rougher edges only to those who've stuck around long enough to see it. And tonight, that's only me.

They define me. These ups and downs that take control of me whenever they see fit. I never quite seem to have mastered them. And I'm not sure I want to. I resent them as much as I need them.

I fear their intensity and tonight, my hands are clenched around the bannister, an attemptive hold on my reality.

A cough to the left of me shakes me from my daze. As I turn around, two intense eyes stare back at me. The cold air carries a softly spoken "They adapt. No matter how fragile they are, they adapt" over to me, and as I follow the man's gaze, mine too fall back onto the heron. As it flies off, I can see a tiny fish glint in its beak.

The man turns to me, nods in acknowledgement and silently disappears off into the night, taking with him the last traces of this night's low.