I sit at home, warm and safe, waiting for her. She, alone in the night, walks the same road that, by day, is bright and reassuring, but by night turns into a treacherous path. An unchanged setting, yet a reality transformed.
I imagine her, walking briskly, glancing behind her, shoulders a little too tense. The darkness is not just the absence of light; it is a presence. It stretches, expands, follows her. The streetlights flicker uncertainly, some going out at just the wrong moment, others casting distorted, eerie silhouettes. The wind, an invisible accomplice, lifts her hair, whispers things she doesn’t want to understand. Threats? Secrets?
— "You could just quit dance if coming back is so terrifying."
She refuses, of course.
I don’t understand. Or rather, I don’t want to understand. Every night, she tries to explain the inexplicable: how these streets, so familiar in daylight, become hostile territory after sunset. Sounds change, distances warp, silence becomes an expectation, a trap set by something undefined.
But maybe she can’t quit.
Because before the night, there is dance.
A spacious studio, bathed in artificial neon light, with the shifting glow of the city filtering through tall windows. Outside, Marseille continues to live, the headlights of passing cars sliding across the glass—fragments of night trying to seep inside.
Inside, another world.
The walls are lined with mirrors, forcing a constant confrontation with herself. A gaze that judges, that scrutinizes, that never lies. A wooden barre stretches across the room—both support and constraint. Every movement must be clean, precise, controlled. Modern dance demands both discipline and freedom. Her body bends, extends, balances. Space itself becomes an extension of her breath. She dissolves into the music, becomes something else.
In this studio, she is safe. The danger isn’t here; it’s outside.
They are two sisters, students, living together along the docks of Marseille. A small apartment where they stack their books, their dreams, and their fears. One dances, the other waits. Two parallel lives converging every night at the doorway.
I wonder if, between steps, between movements, she ever thinks about it. If, even while absorbed in the repetition of sequences, a part of her mind is already bracing for what comes next. The empty streets. The silence heavier than any noise.
Maybe every pirouette, every step brushing the floor, is just a way to delay the inevitable.
Once—just once—I tried it myself.
Daytime out, nighttime return. Same place, same sidewalk, same city. But not the same feeling. Marseille at night does not sleep; it whispers differently. Quieter, but more stretched, more suspended. I saw the shadows moving with no clear source, the glints of light filtering through shuttered windows, casting impossible shapes on the pavement. I heard the sound of my own footsteps—sharper, lonelier. And what if we are never truly alone at night?
But I never told her.
She keeps trying to make me understand, to make me feel what she experiences. And I keep teasing her. I deny it outright, I laugh. After all, it’s just the night. It’s just the city. Nothing has changed—except the way we perceive it. Daylight gives us the illusion of order; night reminds us that everything can shift.
I wonder sometimes… When she dances, does she escape into a world of simplicity, of movement? Or is she already preparing, in some corner of her mind, for her return to the dark?
And while she dances, I wait.
Sometimes too long.
Then I get up, straining to hear.
Absence is a sound that weighs heavy.
A sound louder than any other. It takes the place of familiar noises, swallowing them whole. No phone notifications, no quiet creaks of the wooden floor beneath my feet. Just this waiting, this tension stretching through the air. Absence carves silence, stretches it, makes it more real than any creaking door or distant voice.
I check the time—again. I glance out the window, but the street below offers no answer. And what if, this time, she doesn’t come back?
Then, at last, the key turns in the lock.
The door opens. She steps inside, breathless.
— "Pffff, I thought I was going to die."
— "Me too."
We burst out laughing—a laugh too loud, a laugh meant to push back a fear neither of us wants to fully admit. Because deep down, we share the same unease, each in our own way. She, in the empty streets. Me, in the too-long silence. A fear that unsettles us, that stands between us like an unseen figure, invisible by day, but undeniable once night falls.
And tomorrow, it will be the same. Night will return, the waiting will begin, footsteps will echo against the sleeping city.
And we will laugh again, just to drown out what we would rather not acknowledge.
The Exercise:
Your challenge for today: Tonight, take an ordinary object or scene from your daily life. In the light of the night, transform it into something extraordinary. Let the darkness reveal what the day conceals.
Kafka’s Advice: *"The night is my kingdom, my refuge. Once my workday is over, the night offers me freedom. That is where I find my true voice, far from the constraints of the day."*
Why the night? Kafka teaches us that night frees the mind from conventions, allowing us to access deeper truths. The dark hours unveil what the daylight hides.
To complete this challenge:
• Wait for nightfall
• Choose an ordinary moment from your day
• Let the strangeness of the night alter your perception
• Do not censor yourself
#NightInMarseille #FearInTheDark #WaitingInSilence #DancingThroughShadows #WhispersOfTheNight #TheWeightOfAbsence #CityAtDusk #EchoesOfFootsteps #SistersInTheDark #WhenTheLightsGoOut
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