There are no lamplights in this end of the neighbourhood. Only tall trees standing upright on either side of the road, their leaves drooping down in lament for a long-forgotten motion. Here, night falls in bucketfuls. It washes over the street in waves with no shore to collapse onto. It seeps into alleyways and cracks in windows like transient spools of thread. The sidewalks – also on each side – are littered with dust and dirt and knickknacks and keepsakes.

They seem to have become shelters for all things given and gone. The surrounding boundary walls and heavily secured gates are meant to keep the draught at bay. Instead, these walls lean into the street. Their imposing demeanour only accentuates the heaviness. In between, lies the windless winding road. The point of its meeting the starless sky is indiscernible. It houses no strays, carries no dreaming homeless on its back. The walls bear no room for echoes to interrupt each other. Scarce is the whisper this silence cannot swallow.

And there within the enveloping void lies a lone defiant figure. An empty splotch of canvas amidst a wide expanse of ink. A glowing wisp tracing its way through the blackness. At times what seems to be a hint of smog swirling in the stillness, coming in and out of focus. His swaying limbs and discordant humming form waves in the stillness that surrounds him.

His footprints adorn the sidewalk like a testament imprinted onto the ground. I am, I have been. A shawl is draped over his bare shoulders, the whole world hiding in its fading embroidery. His unkempt nails drag along a dusty wall. They let out a screech that cracks open the atmosphere. His laughter echoes across the neighborhood. It, were anyone to brave the streets at this hour, could be heard from a thousand paces away.

There's music blaring from an old cassette player. The old traveler holds onto it. His only possession, it keeps the cold at bay. Were anyone around to hear him, that's what he'd say. The notes fall out of the boombox in a cascading motion, entering every collapsible gate and window bolted shut. The tune rises beyond the roar of the vacuum. Beyond this silent fog that seeks to hold him captive. The roads wind down towards a foreboding darkness, and the varying notes of the sitar carry him through.